Spotlight: Spanish Artist Manu Muñoz Creates Teeming Scenes Presided Over By Resplendent Tropical Birds

Manu Muñoz, *Roseate II* (2021). Courtesy of Galerie Sept.

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About the Artist: Manu Muñoz (b. 1977) grew up in the small village of Cabo de Gata in southeastern Spain. In that secluded, coastal environment, the artist began making his first murals and graffiti works in 1990 while just a teenager. A few years later, Muñoz began to transition his work to canvas. Over the 30 years since he first started creating art, he has experimented across styles, calling his process one of “endless learning.” Often his works focus on natural elements rearranged to create dynamic, swirling compositions that are at once otherworldly and naturalistic. The artist’s most recent series, “Map of the Odd Life,” is available through Belgium’s Galerie Sept.

Manu Muñoz in his studio. Courtesy of Galerie Sept.

Why We Like It: Against swirling, colorful backdrops bursts of pink feathers, blue beaks, and bursts of foliage appear in dreamlike dynamic compositions. Muñoz imagines a world devoid of humans, in which plants, animals, and other forms of life proliferate—and perhaps even struggle for dominion. The canvases are lush and full of life, but also disorienting. Majestic, tropical birds seem to hover watchfully, like witnesses to the age-old battle between chaos and creation.

Kanazawa’s Peacock in Manu Muñoz’s studio. Courtesy of Galerie Sept.

According to the Gallery: “What would happen if the human vanished from this world? Who would be the true owners of the water, the air? I wonder if it will be a story of more violence and demolition. Or if, on the contrary, everything will progress as a generous, natural, and inevitable embrace. Manu Muñoz’s works examine this question, offering his own vision of this strange time. These canvases are like flutters that take flight and then stop, filled with feathers and colors. There this time is, in front of us, almost whispered, the old world and the new dream…the mystery of life.”

Browse works by the artist below.