In the mid-1950s, Manolo Millares began experimenting with burlap —a material that would define his artistic practice from then on. On one hand, burlap brought Millares back to his roots in the Canary Islands, where encountered bandaged remains of the Guanches, the archipelago’s original inhabitants. On the other, its use aligned him with the work of those artists who embraced materials not traditionally associated with fine art —a practice that came to be known as Art Informel.

For Millares, burlap was also a way of engaging with the concept of “Black Spain” associated with the Spanish Generation of ’98. His torn, stitched and patched canvases reveal an artist driven by an impulse towards destruction, challenging both the conventions of pictorial space and the material integrity of the work itself.