Carlos Albert

Carlos Albert Andrés (born 24 February 1978) is a Spanish sculptor.

He was one of the Group 99, whose manifesto intends to exalt the traditional values art.

Albert works mainly with wrought iron and weathering steel.

He considers Sculpture to share many of the features of drawing, and emphasizes in his work, skill and handling of these materials, especially iron, making drawings of his pieces "three-dimensional" creating empty spaces in the masses from tracks that seem to come alive.

In his artistic creations is more important what he evokes and suggests to the viewer that what is represented.

His career is part of abstract art.

Albert was born on 24 February 1978 in Madrid.

His artistic drive started very young.

In 1996 he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid and four years later, the university granted a stay of studies at Camberwell College of Arts (University of the Arts London), also enriching his artistic training.

This year was key for his career, because it was exposed for the first time in an art gallery participating in the project entitled Collective Will of Iron.

A significant moment in his artistic beginnings, was the meeting in Santander with the sculptor Martin Chirino, thanks to a grant from the Marcelino Botin Foundation in 1999.

Along with this artist, he began special training in working with forging and sculptural conception.

In 2001 he obtained a degree in Fine Arts, also winning the First Prize in the Visual Arts awarded by the Faculty.

That same year, he obtained a grant from the Ministry of Culture of Luxembourg to take part in European Circle courses for the Propagation of the Arts, which served to expand their knowledge in the field.

After his studies of fine art, two years later he obtained the Diploma of Advanced Studies at the same university which represents the Art Fair Madrid, being awarded that year with several awards.

During his college days, Albert began with diverse materials, until he met the wrought iron that marked his artistic evolution.

His current work comes from iron complex networks, whose hallmark is the balance of forms that fold by resounding losses in the material and the search for movement in most parts.

During these years, Albert began to enter fully into the exhibition circuit by grants from entities such as Elsa Peretti Foundation and various competitions that in 2001, among others, awarded him the First Prize for Sculpture at the University of Seville.

This same year he also participated in a group exhibition in the presence of his teacher Martin Chirino and was a breakthrough year for the artist that marked a before and after in his professional beginnings to the creation of the first monumental works, this time for the City Council of Móstoles.

This was the beginning of his work as a sculptor of large pieces that soon after, in 2005, after receiving a number of awards and commissions from various public and private Spanish banks, his role was strengthened as a monumental sculptor to the present, we can see his work at various public spaces of several Spanish cities.

A significant example in this regard is the Door of Tolerance sculpture, which is 15 meters high and 20 meters wide, at the entrance of the town of Parla.

His way of working is guided by traditional values of composition and drawing, values that apply in all of his sculptures.

Albert is an artist attached to the classics.

Defend the traditional fundamental principle and basis of artistic creation.

Amazed at the ease with which he shapes the iron, as if shaping mud with waves and straight lines.

The smoothness of the curves and the lightness of the forms denote an absolute master at manipulating the wrought iron.

An inspiration for his works will be cut up sections of the ship yards in Bueu Nodosa (Pontevedra), which also produced two of his monumental sculptures located in Cangas de Morrazo and Parla.

This will be the beginning of a series of naval-themed pieces, under the title of Marine Architecture, presented later in several solo exhibitions.

The first was shown at the Gallery Four Seventeen of Madrid in 2006 as part of a larger project called Forged Spaces I, with works produced in sheets of steel, where the search space harmonic built was a constant.

Along with the search for traditional values, another important feature that stands out in the creation process of this sculptor, is intuition.

This feature of the way he works can be perceived especially in small works, some of them leaving a clear footprint manifested as almost sketches of preparatory pieces that would seem to build the final work.

However, there is a perfect calculation of all the weights.

They are pieces that despite their apparent instability, maintain a great harmony as a whole.

Sketches seem to be also the series of collages that the artist made in refined style, with contrasting colors and lines.

His compositions also reveal gaps, sometimes occupied by fields of color.

They also present the intuitive nature that permeates many of his sculptures and you can guess a spontaneity in the execution of his strokes.

Combinations of different forms on paper that also have their counterpart in other materials such as steel cut on which Albert constructed reliefs, from the union of several plates worked with extreme softness and elegance.

At the same time, Albert continues to receive commissions for the creation of various memorials like the one held in 2007 to commemorate the victims of the March 11 attacks in Madrid in 2004, at the railway station of Santa Eugenia, coinciding with the third anniversary.

This year will also be important in his career, because he has started his collaboration with the Alberto Cornejo BAT Gallery in Madrid which represents the sculptor's work in the Art Fair Art Madrid.

Also in this gallery, Carlos Albert, shown later among others, are two major individual exhibition projects like Spaces Forged II in 2010, with a great reception by the public and critics and Spaces Forged III in 2012, in which you can see a shift in his work from the technical perspective and composition with different pieces.