De cómo las Bestiarias existen "exactamente igual que como si no existieran"

Galería Jacques Martínez . Octubre-Noviembre 2021

Two semi-circular structures of 90x268 cm each with a sound system distributed in 4 speakers embedded in the structure and several pieces of collage on transparent acrylic floating in the space

The public interacts with the work: it moves through the space and, with the use of flashlights, chooses where to focus. This action of lights and shadows, added to the sounds emanating from the panels, generates an illusion of movement and makes the Bestiarias and their universe come to life.

Sources and research
The exhibition was completed with information about the research and material source used for the collages.
 More information at the gallery web

I fell in love with Loló's Bestiarias from the first moment I saw them. As happens when one falls in love at first sight, at first I did not wonder, I did not think, I did not expect anything, beyond all control. Only later, as sometimes happens, did my mind intervene, trying to describe that infatuation, weigh it and classify it, trying to dismember that initial surprise outright. But I did not make it. The more I knew about the project, the more I returned to the initial infatuation and the more involved I got.

It's been more than a month that I can't stop thinking about them and the tender world that Loló invented for them. In these thoughts, innumerable associations and ideas triggered me. Perhaps, it could be because I was a Botanist many years ago and that imaginary world was strangely familiar to me. These images come from old encyclopaedias, I imagined Loló turning those pages and looking into those old books, like a scientist, classifying and making a sort of herbarium of images and then mixing them all and starting all over again. She was creating hybrids, luxurious and tropical beings like her. Like botanists when they discover a new specimen, she described them, organised them - in a new order - and named them. She then invented a habitat for them to live together, and she called that habitat an installation.

Biology deals with species and species are variations of the same gender. Science long ago discovered that sexual reproduction was the great revolution that enabled evolution through diversity; that great wealth that acts as the engine of change.

Doesn't the previous paragraph sound familiar - and at the same time not so familiar? Don’t these words encompass imperiously current concepts however placed in a different context?

And in the end of the day, if an image enters through the eyes, goes directly to the brain, and triggers ideas that make us think differently, wouldn't this be a good definition of art?

This exhibition, the result of meticulous work, is an invitation to celebrate inspiration, diversity, life and youth, subtlety and imagination.

Clara Martinez

Director of Galería Jacques Martinez