Together with paintings and sculptures Saülo Mercader creates pieces of art in different fields such as ceramics, high-warp tapestries, engravings, drawings, terracotta and lithographies.
He was an apprentice in the sculptor Serrano's workshops which allowsed him to master the different steps in the making of bronze sculptures : from moulding to different processes of casting.
This exceptional osmosis between the people and himself remained extraordinary for two decades and received a considerable echo in the media: in the written press as well as in audio and TV reports.
As the disciple of the sculptor Lucarini,[1] he carved on stone and worked on bronze doing a series of remarkable busts[2] as well as painted portraits such as that of the Marquis de Lozoya in Segovia.
[7][8] In Italy, he studied the great masters who inspired him and guided his hands when he was young and mainly Raphaël, Leonardo da Vinci towards whom he feels a strong brotherly attraction in art.
He lives at the Cité internationale des arts for five years and meet a lot of artists from all around the world: painters, sculptors, comedians, musicians, ballet-dancers, writers.
In the Cité Internationale des Arts’ workshops he starts weaving high-warp tapestries guided by Jagoda Buic and Nora Music and meets the weaver Marin Varbanov there.
Greece and particularly Crete and its mythology inspired him a fresco of large dimensions (720 × 420 cm) entitled : L’Attente du Minotaure which belongs to the Tzovaridis's art collection in Athens.
In Turkey and in Cyprus, Saülo Mercader is confronted with the Eastern cultures and art, its traditions and architecture that are so many sources of prolific inspiration to him.
He exhibits a few paintings in Istanbul at the Biennal of Contemporary Art; then in Bodrum, in Nicosia where the encounters with Turkish and Chypriot artists such as Aylin Örek, Habib Gerez, Feti Arda allow him to discover a new and rich world in creativity that nourish and inspire his creations.
He exhibits in Utrecht, inspired by its romantic canals : all those places are mines of so many awaken dreams to Saülo Mercader who paints, carves, draws, writes about his experiences, what he sees, the people he meets.
The city of Figeac (in the Lot region, South of France) welcomes two exhibitions in 1995 and 2000 on the Minotaur theme : Les Hurlements du Taureau, hailed by the media : written press, audio and TV reports.
He participates in a program : L’Art à l’Ecole with itinerant exhibitions and punctual conferences sponsored by The Ministry of Youth and Sports.
His exhibition : Les hologénies de l’Etron at the Cervantes Cultural Institute in Toulouse (South of France) surprises by the originality of its theme.
The Catalan period inspired him tormented landscapes and subjects with symbolical elements : keys, candlesticks, twilights, the moon, portraits and self-portraits.
In Paris he paints what he calls « the Green series » mainly urban people, tramps, homeless, mothers with child, picturesque and poetical tales.
Among them, let us note : Anamnèse, la Fatijah and Rotor III, a large three-dimensional tapestry inspired by the volumes in sculpture and by Sheila Hicks’s textile creations.
Saülo Mercader's works are present in numerous private and public collections in the world : The Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid (Peras en Primavera), the French National Library (engravings at Richelieu site « The poet »), Teachers’ College, Columbia University in New-York City (« The Eight Profiles »), a few works at the Bodrum Art and Archeology Museum (Turkey), State Turkish Museum (« Equilibrium of the Mind »), City of Tarragone and City of Guadalajara (Spain), Tzovaridis's collection in Athens (« L’Attente du Minotaure ») and more others.
Saülo Mercader tells with decency, poetic accents and an honest vision his years as a child and young man in his country : Spain in the times of Franquism and its inhuman regime.
The American newspapers and TV channels have hailed Saülo Mercader's shows in New-York considering them as ones of the very important artistic events of the season (Daily News, Village Voice, New York Post…).