White Forest (Lou)

Towering almost two metres in height, White Forest (Lou) (2015) is a striking example from Jaume Plensa’s iconic series of human heads. First begun in 2009, each work in this series depicts a girl between the ages of eight and fifteen; Plensa’s models come from varied backgrounds and are all shown with their eyes shut in powerful tranquillity. Sculpted from wood, and then cast in bronze and covered with a white patina, White Forest (Lou) is at once serene and commanding. Her face is elongated: a device Plensa uses to bestow a ‘certain spirituality’ to the person represented (J. Plensa, quoted in Y. Mun-Delsalle, ‘World-Renowned Spanish Artist Jaume Plensa Uses the Body and Letters as His Trademark’, Forbes, 29 February 2019). Indeed, these heads possess a monumental grace, a gravity which conjures ancient ruins, venerated statues and the vestiges of bygone civilisation.

Born in Barcelona, Plensa studied at the city’s Llotja School of Art and Design and at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts. Since his first exhibition in 1980, his work has been shown at the Fundació Joan Miró, the Jeu de Paume, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among others. For Plensa, ‘sculpture means the spiritualisation of matter’, creating an ‘interaction between mind and material’ which he currently explores through representations of the human form (M. Stoeber, ‘Transforming energy: A Conversation with Jaume Plensa’, Sculpture, March 2006, p. 39). For more than two decades, the figure has been the central focus of his practice, which he has rendered in variety of materials. Plensa’s use of bronze in White Forest (Lou) both locates it within a longer sculptural lineage and imbues it with a timeless dignity. At once modern and atemporal, it is a work that speaks to the whole of humanity.