Moisès Villèlia was the son of the sculptor and carver Julià Villèlia. He moved to Mataró with his family in 1942 after his father was named head of a furniture factory in the city. When in Mataró, Moisès became an apprentice carver. In 1945, his father left the factory and opened a workshop together with Moisès, who also became interested in Romantic and Symbolist poetry around the time.
In 1949 he exhibited his first sculpted piece at the Municipal Museum of Mataró, while working with father on the presbytery of the Santa Maria de Mataró basilica. In 1953 he worked with his father on the sculptures for the Santa Anna Chapel. At this point he decided to dedicate himself fully to sculpture, entering into contact with the artistic circles active at the time.
The following year, in 1954, he did his first individual exhibition, at the Municipal Museum of Mataró. At that particular time he chose to stop working in figuration entirely, and founded the group Art Actual with the goal of bringing the latest artistic tendencies to Mataró. His artistic career then began to take off, as he participated in the October Salons in Barcelona in 1956 and 1957, while joining Club 49 through the art dealer Joan Prats.
In the following years he alternated his work in sculpture with professional work in industrial design, theatre design and landscape gardening. In 1967 the Institute Français awarded him a grant to travel to Paris, and in 1968 he showed the drawings and sculpture made during his stay in the French capital.
In 1969 he left for Argentina, from where he travelled to Ecuador before eventually returning to Barcelona in 1972. During his stay in Latin America he developed the idea that all cultures with a strong tradition working with bamboo also had fine legacies in ceramics. Years afterwards his sculptures began to explore this symbiosis of materials.
Starting in the 1980s his sculptures began to feature ceramic elements, as well as what were known as teranyines [webbing], even though there is no question that Villèlia’s sculpture should be contemplated on the basis of his work with bamboo shoots. They are light structures that are often made to float in the air, with the emerging spaces dialoguing with the voids and the forms predetermined by the nodes on the bamboo.
It is quite likely that his critical attitude towards the authorities during the Franco period led him to lesser recognition in his lifetime than he probably deserved. This can be validated with his refusal to represent Spain at the 1963 Sao Paulo Biennial, unwilling to be seen as subservient to the ideology of the Franco regime.
The exhibition presented here recognizes the prolific, accomplished career of this poet and sculptor. Works included date from the early 1970s to the 1990s, including floating sculptures, statues and webs. His sculptures feature a symbiosis of wildest nature tamed by human hand, featuring primitivism, organic forms, movement, spatial reflections and voids. His sculptures intersect space, their shadows projecting the pieces themselves and making up part of them.