He studied at the school of art and design of La Lonja and the school of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi, making his first exhibition in Barcelona in 1980. An artist with an international career, he has exhibited all over the world and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. Plensa has received several prizes and awards including, among others, the National Fine Arts Award from the Generalitat de Catalunya (1997) or the Sant Jordi Cross award (2012).

His work focuses mainly on the human figure, in which he links two essential elements: matter and word. Although in his beginnings, he made more totemic and primitive sculptural works, in the nineties he introduced emptiness, making his creations light and poetic sculptures that evoke loneliness, claiming vulnerability and human rights. It is in recent years when he creates his characteristic faces of men and women exhibited around the world, where the close relationship between many of his sculptures and public space is revealed.

Although he primarily defines himself as a sculptor, Plensa is a very versatile artist who has worked in the fields of painting and graphic arts. He has also worked in scenographic creation for theatrical productions, mainly with La Fura dels Baus. Recently, in 2023, he directed a new staging of the opera Macbeth (2023) by Giuseppe Verdi at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, with scenery and costumes by the artist.