A Superhero's Power To Dream - Edgar Plans
Odile Chen / Ravenel Quarterly No. 39 / 2022-05-12
Live On and Dream On
As a "big kid" and artist, Edgar Plans believes that "childhood should never end because we should keep pursuing our dreams like a child." (La infancia nunca se debe acabar, siempre temenos que seguir soñando como aquellos niños que quieren ser alguien especial). For as long as Plans could remember, he had doodled on walls in creative ways without anyone telling him what to draw or not. Painting is a boundless and joyful talent that should be admired and supported by the family.
The Plans brothers grew up around their father Juan José Plans (1943-2014), a very talented man who wore the hats of a broadcasting host, reporter, director, and science fiction writer. Whenever their father worked at a low 4-seater table, the Plans brothers would sit beside him and doodle unrestrainedly as the clickety-clack of the typewriter echoed in the atmosphere. The boys were unconsciously influenced by their knowledgeable father's magical stories of fantasy, wackiness, suspense, delight, and horror. Plans often incorporates simple yet powerful text symbols in his paintings, which are not only inspirations from the street graffiti culture, but also a tribute to his father for supporting his creative dreams. The all-encompassing support from his father was a source of emotional attachment and everlasting childhood memories that Plans went on to express in his works.
Born in Madrid, Spain in 1977, Plans is 45 years old this year. Always having a beard, he is now a husband and father who actively participates in social media and art communities. His artworks are often characterized by bold, dynamic outlines that express childlike wonders and subtle humors. A closer look at the fine styles and colors reveals profound implications that are deeply appealing to new-generation collectors. Over the past two to three years, Plans quickly became a key investment target for urban collectors. Half self-taught and half formally-trained, Plans came from a simple, straightforward background in the creative industry. According to his estimation, he has set off on this creative journey for at least forty years.
At 19 years old, Plans met Sandra Rodriguez, an archaeology and history student, with whom he married in 2010 after more than 10 years together. Their daughter Olivia, born in 2018, has inherited the family's artistic instincts as she also liked to doodle. Plans has proudly shared Olivia's childlike reinterpretation of his characters on private social media. The innocent wonders in Olivia's drawings have instilled Plans with new inspirations about pure souls. These also added a touch of tenderness to Plans' paintbrushes, taking his creation to an even more imaginative level.
The Beginning of an Art Hero
In 1985, Plans moved to Gijón, a coastal city in northern Spain, with his family when he was 8 years old. He continued with freestyle doodling until he was "forced" to attend art lessons with his older sister. However, he only enjoyed drawing sequential stories at that time; he was not interested in painting traditional fruit still life or making charcoal sketches of plaster sculptures at all.
Once in an interview, Plans said, "More than choosing [to paint], the painting has chosen me." At 15 years old, he gradually sensed his desire to portray reality through painting and sketching– that was when he began to work on academic subjects and painting skills. For two years, he learned to express internal ideas through painting at José Maria Ramos's art studio. Slowly, Plans came to realize that he does not need someone standing behind him to watch and correct his mistakes. Instead, he needs to find his way of art by contemplating between misunderstanding and reality on his own quest.
Plans rented the art studio of late Asturian artist Nicanor Piñole (1878-1978) and continued with academic training in the attic there. By successfully obtaining an Art History degree from the University of Oviedo, Plans managed to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional artist. Plans recalls the thrilling surprise when he learned that a painting was sold at his first exhibition. Although it has been more than 20 years ago, this impressive experience has inspired Plans to make a living as an artist.
Looking at Plans' exhibition participation throughout the years, he began attending miscellaneous group exhibitions in Madrid and Gijón in 1998. In 2001, he held his first solo exhibition in collaboration with Fundación Alvargonzález Gijón. In 2004, his work received an award at the Contemporary Art Week "AlNorte 04" along with a scholarship from El Comercio. Plans' early works were characterized by a combination of Expressionism and figurative painting. The abstract, simple symbols and outlines in his works demonstrate his innocent spirit and pure visual aesthetics that resemble the wonders of child paintings.
Having grown up in Southern Europe, Plans' paintings deliver a natural sense of warmth through themes based on his life experiences and issues he cares about. He has an admiration for street art including graffiti, comics, illustrations, as well as animation movies. His artworks have been critically influenced by the urban contemporary character styles in these works. He also learns by observing the styles of masters like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, and mixing in a blend of his own unique characteristics. Plans likes to apply white or colored outlines to urban landscapes and country views on a gray background to form a chalk-like scribbly texture.
Plans has received numerous awards for his artworks, including the poster he designed for Feria Internacional de Muestras de Asturias (FIDMA) in 2009. This work earned the artist wide acclaim for forming the imagery of a prosperous shipping industry through varying sizes of cubes and rectangular color blocks in a staggering pattern.
Around 2009, Plans created "Animal Hero", a character with Mickey Mouse-like ears and big eyes in a helmet and cape. The stylish elements from comics and movies have made this figure one of the artist's most iconic signatures. By telling interesting little stories as a superhero or in the disguise of a pilot, veterinarian, architect, soccer player, chef, cyclist, or painter, this character makes an appeal about politics and current events.
Plans has a positive collaboration with Galería Cornión, a small art space in Gijón dedicated to promoting Asturian artists. It has worked with Plans on at least 5 solo exhibitions since 2004. The artist also maintains a long-term relationship with Galería Miquel Alzueta, a multi-branch gallery in Catalonia, Barcelona. The two parties have also collaborated on five solo exhibitions. Although Plans held most of his solo exhibitions in Spain, the growing requests for art expos and exhibitions will introduce his works to a greater audience in other parts of the world.
The Superpowers of Rising Art Celebrities
Chance favors the prepared mind. Expanding his partnership with the galleries, Plans participated in Art Miami, KIAF Seoul, and London Art Fair in 2018. In 2019, he launched the solo exhibition "Art Notes 019" at the Ainori Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal. During that same year, he also attended Art Taipei, Art AMOY, Art Busan, KIAF, as well as art expos in New York and Paris. In 2020, Plans flew to New York to attend his agency gallery–Padre Gallery's Dream Makers, which is a group exhibition that introduces Plans' work to the Big Apple.
The recent rise of social media and Internet art shops has undoubtedly created a blue ocean for emerging artists. The launch of Plans' artworks on Artsy in 2019 instantly made him the second best-selling artist of that year. Subsequently, his works also became available on secondary market auctions, particularly the dynamic Asian auction markets. Before this launch, only a handful of Plans' works could be found at small auctions in Madrid with unimpressive selling prices. It was not until 2020 when SBI Tokyo, Ravenel Taipei, and Poly Hong Kong began to recommend his works did the small oil paintings start to sell at exceedingly higher than expected prices, in millions of NTD dollars. In 2021, even more auctioneers joined the venture of auctioning Plans' works. The selling prices continued to rise, reaching 4.41 million RMB (approximately 20 million NTD or 700 thousand USD) at a Shanghai auction in March 2022, breaking the artist's highest auction record.
It is no surprise that the multi-branch Almine Rech Gallery from Paris came to seek collaboration with Plans upon discovering his market potential. The gallery built three customized exhibitions for Plans between 2021 and 2022, including the "Kawaii" group show in Shanghai, "Once Upon a Time" tribute exhibition for great French writers in Paris, and "The Wall" in Brussels–a wall of paintings that foreshadowed the later development of NFT profile pictures.
Plans' artworks have become increasingly popular as they attract many new collectors from Asia. In 2020, the Warehouse Gallery from Hong Kong's Warehouse Optical invited Plans to participate in the solo exhibition "Optical Hero." In addition, K11 Musea, founded by Adrian Cheng Chi-kong of New World Development, also held Plans' pop up exhibitions "The Power of Letters" at K11 Guangzhou in May 2020 and Hong Kong K11 in 2021. These pop up exhibitions formed popular check-in locations for young people. Simultaneously launched with the exhibitions are highly popular, limited edition sculptures and merchandise jointly designed by K11 and Misha Made.
The artist believed that everyone can be a hero when they obtain powers from knowledge and reading. This has been a consistent philosophy in all of Plans' artworks throughout the years. As he once wrote, "The real superheroes with superpowers exist among us. It is not easy to identify them because they want to stay unnoticed. However, you can find them if you look carefully. Your superpower is not about flying or stretching your body elastically, or seeing through walls. It is about learning, smiling, sharing, and most importantly, hard working. The power is in your hands. Now is the time to visit a nearby bookstore."
Clearly, Plans has combined his personal insights from life experience and his father's lifelong inspirations into the recent series of hero sculptures: "Artist Hero" (2019), "Power of Letters" (2021), and "Reading Hero" (2021). The adorable hero figures are freestyle and full of wonderful imaginations.
Into an NFT Metaverse
Beyond national boundaries, Plans' works have been collected by various public institutions around the world, such as the Havana Museum of Contemporary Art (Museo de Arte Contemporíneo de la Habana, Cuba), the Fine Arts Museum of Asturias (Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias), Pinacoteca Eduardo Ùrculo Municipal Art Gallery, the General Junta of the Principality of Asturias (Junta General del Principado de Asturias), the Art and Industrial Creation Centre (LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial), the La Caixa Foundation of Barcelona (Fundación La Caixa), and the Mar?a Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation (Fundación Cristina Peterson) in Madrid.
Plans likes to convey positive thinking through art, hence he often writes words of encouragement in his paintings. Some examples include "I am a Hero," "Don't forget your dreams," "Did I do my best to be happy in my life," "What's your power," "Power is in you." Other than using heroes as a symbol of power, he is also very passionate about "dreams." He repeatedly emphasizes the importance of dreams to everyone. Like he said, "Dreams can only be achieved through hard work. Never stop dreaming because it is the essence of life."
Is the metaverse an extension of dreams? Plans released the NFT "Lil Heroes" project in December 2021, for which he painted over 150 figures and 50 classic artworks. A total of 7,777 NFTs were jointly completed by Curatible, the art collectors team for this NFT project, and Exile Content Studio. Launched on January 16, 2022, the project attracted over 40,000 fans to Discord and quickly became first place in OpenSea trading volume on the first day. Up until the deadline of this article on April 21, 2022, Lil Heroes had accumulated an astonishing trading volume of 17.8K ETH (about 55 million USD).
Not long ago, this NFT project was advertised on the Times Square digital billboard in New York and broadcasted to the world. Balvin, the famous Latin Reggae star is not only a fan of Plans' works but also one of the first celebrity collectors of Lil Heroes NFT. Among Plans' 6 NFTs for auction in March 2022 in Hong Kong, #4751 Bath Time was sold for the highest price of $819,000 HKD (about 3.05 million NTD or $105,000 USD).
Over the past couple of years, Plans' artworks have swirled through the urban art collectors' community alongside other Spanish artists like Javier Calleja, Okokume, and Rafa Macarrón. The adorable and healing styles are very appealing to new- generation collectors as the bidding prices continue to rise. The art market is a place for dream makers. Never stop dreaming because it may take us afar to the metaverse!
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