El mar desconegut 1947

Angel Planells created this surreal scene of El mar desconegut using pencil, ink and gouache. Imagine Planells’ process as he built up this fantasy landscape. He must have been carefully mapping out the composition, figuring out how to make these strange elements come together on the page. In this dreamscape, the surreal takes centre stage with a woman seemingly sculpted from stone, posing on a rock like a modern day siren. Then to the left we have an avocado-shaped cloud with a smaller cloud inside, which is bizarre and wonderful. As I look closer I see that, perhaps, Planells was in conversation with Dalí, Breton, and other surrealists. There’s a similar sense of the absurd, a flaunting of the unconscious. The unknown sea is truly uncharted! Artists are always responding to each other, so let’s keep the conversation flowing. After all, it is the exchange of ideas that makes art so exciting!