Santi was born in a home of potters and croakers, since the great-grandfather "Fèlix Polls" already installed, in the same place of Girona street of Granollers, in 1921, his oven. Therefore, always, as a child, the work with the mud, let's say that it was his run of the mill. Familiarity with this element and the drifting art completely impregnated him.
Grow surrounded by such unique elements we say that you can drive or straighten a path, that however, it had to be filled later with artistic studies, of the material and how to manipulate it and work it. Develop the raw material until it becomes a unique piece, unrepeatable, almost even sometimes, beyond a gem in herself. Transform that primary element, so useful always in the evolution of the human being, since he discovers the benefit of the direct work of the land, or the use to create your daily utensils. Where the need or purpose of creating elements of worship is also born, of beauty or brightness, to turn that element of so insignificant appearance in a way to transform the world.
This was the purpose of Santi, the learning that was already taken from home with the work of that land, to fill it also with artistic elements, which damned inside to manifest themselves; for that reason the preparation and the studies of "Fine Art", learn the trade of ceramicist and sculptor also in la Bisbal, working at low and high temperature cooking, to fire wood, of gas or electric; stoneware, porcelain, enamels, oxidation. Later for years, since the end of the 1970s and the 1980s, a new experience with the dedication to the teaching of these techniques, of his world, of his art, to the studio and family factory of Girona street.
He is an independent, discreet man, worker, creator, dedicated in body and soul to his art and its derivatives, that has led him to do individual and collective exhibitions, at home and abroad, recognized, rewarded and honoured especially in foreign areas: in Catalonia, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, United States, Portugal, Sweden, Taiwan, Japan.
His work also appears in numerous bibliographical indexes of contemporary artists and plastic arts, and in different places from where the most celebrated distinctions arrive: Barcelona, Milan, Florence, Turin, Paris, Kobe, Rome, Buenos Aires, New York, Madrid, Stockholm, Brindisi, etc.
There is an almost prehistoric metaphor, speaks of a potter-divine modeling a figure that with an infusion of spiritual breath he would become a human person. When I think about it, and Santi makes me think a lot of times, I conclude that a true grounding must have been. And I rely on my idea when I saw the ceramist of Granollers working the mud with his hands and modeling it on the potter's wheel. Humanity is the work of art never surpassed because it is not only object but also subject. And Santi Subirana is the true image of the oldest potter in history.
The potter artist of Granollers lived from home to little smells of country and the same land to the service of the everyday from the home. The earth, the mud, the water and the fire have coexisted with him and have made him an artist. Because Santi Subirana ceramics smells like home with the plate on the table and give away the fragrance of feelings with designer pieces, with decorative creations and with others of surrealistic imaginations. Humility and simplicity have always set their studio facilitating that freedom of movement that carry the poetic sign of life.
Speaking with him and commenting on his work and the acceptance that its pottery has in Italy, France, the United States and Japan we realize that we are dealing with an artist that feels totally integrated into the human roots that remind us to share the same identity with the whole of the cosmos. His pottery consequently, it is the fruit of the inner truth that reads in a handful of mud the vibrations of the spirit of the land and turns that mud into a creation that becomes a friend of people. Because art is not only true, it is also friendship. And friendship shares coexistence.
Enric Garcia-Pey invites us to discover the work of Santi Subirana. He does it as always with a text rigorous, easy to read and excellently documented.
It is a timely book. Santi pottery is better known in Italy or France than in our country. It's a good time to highlight your career. To admire the magnitude of his work. To discover the continuous research in shapes and colors that he has been concretizing in his pieces. To identify your connection with harmony and balance as tools to find beauty. With the hands, with the lathe, with the fire. And with the sand. Innovating from tradition. Loyal to a place and some roots.
For my generation and my parents' generation, Subirana has always meant ceramics. Today it is also worth remembering what the historic shop in Girona street has represented for Granollers. And his workshop. And his oven. And the mud that so many of us have gone there to find because our children get their hands dirty to discover new forms. To invent new worlds. For let the imagination fly. This pedagogical dimension that the manipulation of materials incorporates, is also present in Santi's professional journey.
His work is rigorous. It responds to strong discipline, calm practice and perseverance that together with an extreme creativity that plays with new shapes, primary colors and references drawn from our history of art and nature, presents us with a work entirely original and with its own mature language.
Santi and I shared a passion: football. We met in the youth team of the Esport Club Granollers. He defender, I goalkeeper. He was a solid defender, intense, always focused, serious, humble. Of those who give confidence.
I've always thought that people in the world of sports live as we played. The values we have gone profiling in every training session, in every competition they end up having a decisive influence on the configuration of our personality.
Tracing the work and career of Santi Subirana I read the solidity, the intensity, the concentration, the seriousness, the humility that I knew him on the football field.
He learns the craft of ceramic sculptor at the sculpture and ceramics factory that his parents have in Granollers (Barcelona).
-Ceramics School of La Bisbal.
-Slipwares, oxides, colorants, sgraffito and varnish.
-Single fired at low and high temperature, oven of wood, gas and electric.
-Decoration under cover, raku, preparation of stoneware and porcelain formulas.
-White opaque enamel, drawing on cover, graphic design, matt and glossy satin enamels, porcelain, gas oven, reduction, stoneware.
-Electric oven, oxidation.
-Higher temperature ceramics upper course, chemistry, diagnostics of materials, stoneware, porcelain and enamels.
-Drawing and painting studies with the painter Joan Torrabadell of Granollers.