The sculpture titled “Man #3,” created by Cesc Abad in 2025, is a 12.5 x 8 x 7.5 cm ceramic piece, preserved in excellent condition. Within the series of male figures created by the artist, this work is distinguished by the posture of the figure, who appears seated on a cylindrical base decorated with red geometric motifs, in contrast to the flesh-toned modeling of the body.
The male figure presents a nude body, worked in a deliberately crude, expressionist style, where the anatomical disproportions and gestures convey irony and provocation. The face, marked by a rough-textured black beard and circular red eyes, takes on an air somewhere between the grotesque and the carnivalesque, reminiscent of both ritual masks and modern caricatures. The exaggerated genitals and the red and black chromatic details intensify the symbolic and humorous meaning of the piece.
Here, Abad uses the language of ceramics not as a classical means of representation, but as a field open to experimentation. His work engages with European popular tradition—particularly the satirical and grotesque terracottas of the 18th and 19th centuries—but reactivates them from a contemporary perspective that connects with current visual culture, where the obscene, the exaggerated, and the absurd function as critical tools against models of masculinity and power.
The signature on the inside of the base, painted in red, reinforces the uniqueness of the piece, linking it to the identity of an artist who transforms each work into a hybrid of the popular and the cultured.
Overall, this sculpture embodies Cesc Abad’s desire to break with the canons of beauty and representation, proposing a universe filled with dark humor, visual tension, and social criticism.
