Petri Camera

Abandoning her well-paying fashion career to pursue sculpture was undoubtedly a courageous and challenging decision for artist Mireia Serra in 1998. 

The Barcelona-born Serra dreamt of making art at a young age but faced pressures from her family to choose a more traditionally stable career path. She completed her studies in fashion design in the mid-1990s and went on to work in lingerie, managing the Intima Cherry, Gemma and Silhouette labels.

Serra subsequently pivoted toward art and began to study sculpture, graduating in 2002 from the Llotja School of Arts. There, where Pablo Picasso and Antoni Gaudí had taken classes before her, Serra specialized in iron and bronze work. Later she expanded upon her technical training with advanced portrait sculpture studies under Jorge Egea at the European Museum of Modern Art.

Serra’s withdrawal from the fashion world was not a complete departure, as she often finds ways to integrate into her figurative sculptures compelling allusions to the work that characterized her prior career. She creates slender human forms perched atop globes or sprawled out on shelves, each of them clad in tasteful albeit monochrome apparel. Their ensembles get meticulous attention — note how the ends of slim-cut pant legs sit on the tops of detailed sneakers or the main compartment of a contemporary backpack is given precise texture as if its exterior is made of quilted lambskin leather.  

The 2013 International Art Fair in Madrid was the first solo show for Serra, and she has had multiple exhibitions at art fairs and galleries all over Europe since then. She has been represented by Artspace Warehouse since 2017.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Mireia Serra sculptures and mixed media works.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

Figurative sculptures mix reality and imagination, with the most common muse being the human body. Animals are also inspirations for these sculptures, along with forms found in nature.

While figurative sculpture dates back over 35,000 years, the term came into popularity in the 20th century to distinguish it from abstract art. It was aligned with the Expressionist movement in that many of its artists portrayed reality but in a nonnaturalistic and emotional way. In the 1940s, Alberto Giacometti — a Swiss-born artist who was interested in African art, Cubism and Surrealism — created now-iconic representational sculptures of the human figure, and after World War II, figurative sculpture as a movement continued to flourish in Europe.

Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon were some of the leading figurative artists during this period. Artists like Jeff Koons and Maurizio Cattelan propelled the evolution of figurative sculpture into the 21st century.

Figurative sculptures can be whimsical, uncanny and beautiful. Their materials range from stone and wood to metal and delicate ceramics. Even in smaller sizes, the sculptures make bold statements. A bronze sculpture by Salvador Dalí enhances a room; a statuesque bull by Jacques Owczarek depicts strength with its broad chest while its thin legs speak of fragility. Figurative sculptures allow viewers to see what is possible when life is reimagined.

Browse 1stDibs for an extensive collection of figurative sculptures and find the next addition to your collection.