Wild Flower 1
BERTRAND FOURNIER. 2022. Oil on canvas. 160 x 140 cm.
FLORALIA
Group Exhibition
Group Exhibition
During the Roman Empire the festivities celebrating Flora, goddess of spring, vegetation and fertility were called Floralia. Held in the goddess’ honor to ensure good harvests, this commemoration became over time more playful, representing a true celebration of Spring and the joy that brings the restoration of nature.
Paying homage to this celebration, we invited a group of our represented artists to explore their personal meaning of Spring.
We are pleased to present “Floralia” an unusual group exhibition with which we would like to celebrate spring, the revival of social life after a period of closure, the renewal of the gallery’s endeavor and the new paths that are now opening to us.
Flora, the goddess who brings spring, tends the gardens and makes the fields bloom with the arrival of the new season was not a very prominent goddess, but with the arrival of good weather her worship was revived for a few weeks. Thus, in the last days of April and the first days of May, in the Roman cities, there were parades and processions with young and beautiful girls adorned with flowers, these festivities were the Floralias. Flora was a goddess who was always young, always beautiful, polite, a symbol of poise, a modest goddess who brightened up the lives of mortals; for this reason she was taken as a positive example among the young girls of Roman society.
2022. Aerosol on canvas. 110 x 110 cm.
Floralia proposes a journey through various forms of representation of the flower. This itinerary starts with the flower as a living element, first embodied in its natural habitat by James Rielly, and then captured in an instant to be presented as a portrait by Andrea Torres Balaguer, Paula Codoñer, and Hugo Alonso.
In another way, Gabrielle Graessle, Francisco Mendes Moreira and Sito Mújica take the flower to a human context, making reference to the ancestral floral art and the place it occupies in the home and in our most intimate spaces.
Embarking on the path of conceptualization, Bertrand Fournier, Sabine Finkenauer, Santeri Lehto, Maijastiina Lehto and Isidre Enrich completely decontextualize the flower to show it in a permanent, timeless way, belonging to the world of ideas.
Nuria Maria, unlike those mentioned above, returns to the sensory world presenting two works that make us live the experience, the evocation of a field of flowers, the wind and its smells; while Lusesita molds some ceramic flowers, static, that will last forever.
To end the tour of the room, Andrés Reisinger reminds us how to draw inspiration from our surroundings to create everyday objects, and how the most organic and warm forms always come from nature itself.
2022. Glazed ceramics. 52 x 30 x 35 cm.
JAMES RIELLY. 2022. Oil on linen. 83 x 73 cm. SOLD.
“I did not watch over any fields, nor did I regard the fertile gardens; the lilies were withered, you could see the violets parched and the stems of the reddish crocus languishing. The Zephyr often said to me: “Don’t spoil your dowry yourself”; he did not appreciate my dowry. The olive trees were in blossom: the hailstones hurt the crops; the vineyard gave hope: the sky was blackened by the austere weather, and the branches fell with the unexpected rain. And I neither wanted to be nor am I cruel in my anger, but I took no care to avoid it. The parents gathered and offered an annual feast to my vanity for the good blossoming of the year. I accepted the offer. The consuls Laenas and Postumius held games in my honour.“
Ovid writes as Flora in his Fasti V (315 – 330).
