Softshell Turtle: a hard material to the eye, like one of those Roman breastplates depicting defined abdominal muscles. One of those that cover the chest and back. A hard material, in a turtle formation, a threatening block. The artist approaches and begins to sense what material it is, but he is not entirely sure. He decides to proceed with a chest examination and, surprisingly, when he rests his hands against the sculpture, they sink slightly into it, and he can feel the ribs and several organs: an internal cardboard structure can be guessed under the thick skin of fast-expanding polyurethane. This sculptural proposal aims to consider the relationships established between materials, between hard and soft bodies, cold and warm bodies, organic and non-organic bodies, and rigid and flexible forms.
Mikel Adán Tolosa (Caldes de Montbui, 1998) focuses his work on revealing the material relationships arising during the sculptural act, considering the sculptor to be a subject capable of altering or defining a final form that is always constantly changing. He graduated in Fine Arts from the Universitat de Barcelona and in Sculptural Techniques from Escola Massana. He has held solo exhibitions at La Granja (2025) and Dilalica (2025) and participated in group exhibitions at venues including 200cent (2025), Halfhouse (2024), Sala d’Art Jove (2024) and FOC (2022). Moreover, together with the dancer and choreographer Irene Rojo, he presented the performance Carne y piedra (Flesh and Stone) at La Caldera and the School for Contemporary Dance (P.A.R.T.S., Brussels), for which he received the Young Art Creation Prize in 2024. He has also participated in the Celestino Cuevas artist residency in Reinosa (Cantabria) and the Jardun Artistikoentzako Institutua (JAI) study programme at Tabakalera, Artium and the Oteiza Museum (Basque Country).
