The sculptor and painter, Francisca Llabrés, is one of the most renown artists in Mallorca. Born in Palma in 1955, she resides in Establiments, where she has her home and her workshop. Her work shows us how it is possible to extract from the hardness of rocks the most subtle and tender forms:

bodies intertwined that hold each other, that love each other, confide in each other and help one another bear the weight of life. She also makes other more serious pieces that protest against things like abuse, loss of personal freedom and terrorism. Francisca Llabrés is the daughter of a marger (stonemason), from where her obsession with stone comes from. She has been carving rocks since she was a young child. She painted her first pieces at 15 years old, but she feels more like a sculptor than a painter.

“Sculpting allows me to create through touching and handling the works. With painting I only have the visual”, she explains. She believes that rocks can talk. “You just have to know how to listen to them, which is easy to do once you have learnt how to look at them”.
Llabrés has taken her works to many exhibitions within and without Mallorca. Some of her works are stored in places like the San Carlos Military Museum, the Lluc Episcopal Museum, Banca March and the Secar de la Real monastery.

One of her most obvious influences is Miguel Ángel. She believes in daily work, but also in inspiration. “Inspiration is the father of the piece while work is the mother”, she asserts. In 2008, her work was selected to represent the Balearic Islands at the Almoneda Fair. In December, she took part in the Independent Art Fair, also in Madrid. She is already preparing an exhibition for the ONCE Foundation Museum for 2010.