French artist Bruno Catalano has created an extraordinary series of eye-catching bronze sculptures called “Les Voyageurs” in Marseilles that depict realistic human workers with large parts of their bodies missing.

The sculptures were put on display in Marseilles to celebrate its position as the 2013 European Capital of Culture. They are skillful works of art even without the omissions, but the missing parts of the sculptures make them truly extraordinary and unique. They leave room for the imagination – are they missing something, or is it something that these “voyagers” have simply left behind? What’s especially impressive is that some of the sculptures seem to stand on very little support, giving them a sort of ethereal and surreal appearance.

They are works of art, sculptures that resonate with the modern-day soul. Sculptures that tell the story of the nomad, the pilgrim, the traveler, the refugee, the immigrant. They are incomplete and imperfect, yet that is what makes them so beautiful, so unique. They are beautifully imperfect.

As I searched to find out a bit more about the artist I discovered Catalano is a third culture kid, a global nomad. He was born in Casablanca but moved to France at 12 years old, settling in Marseille. He went on to become a sailor, and it was both of these things that inspired his sculptures.

During two years, from 1980 to 1982, Catalano joined the maritime compagny Paquet as an electrician before quiting and joining the SNCM until 1986. Meanwhile, since 1981, Catalano had started to become familiar with working clay.He studied during two years at the moudeling and drawing studio Françoise Hamel in Marseille, in the south of France. Bruno Catalano got very inspired by the work of Bruno Lucchesi whose artworks he discovered in a specialized book about clay techniques.