January 10 - Feburary
Kavachnina Contemporary Presents: Works by Spanish artist Romulo Royo.
Born in Zaragoza, Royo has worked both as illustrator and fine artist. Since 2000 he has exhibited internationally through private collections, foundations, and museums, including "...the Metelkova Museum, Can Framis Museum, the X Biennial Martínez Guerricabeitia Foundation at the Museum of the City of Valencia, Fran Daurel Foundation, Maeztu Museum Estella, The 4th Biennial of Contemporary Art of Moscow, National Metelkova Museum of Slovenia…"
Most of these are paintings from his "Goddesses of Niburu" series, with delicate, otherworldly portrayals of the female figure. The series draws from fantasy and science fiction to engage a collective internal conflict between myth and reality. These more sensuous paintings are accompanied by pieces from other bodies of work, "The Hang" and "Siamese." Their singular, powerful presence in the gallery space brings context to the intimate conversations of the "Goddesses of Niburu"--if these sensuous figures represent a fantasy, then the visible torment of "The Hang" reveals the enigmatic sorrow implied by such a longing to escape.
"Romulo Royo imposes bodies and faces of nearly monumental existence, attractive yet at the same time difficult to bear. His multiple races, his Siamese twins, and bent heads on bodies send the message time and time again that otherness is crucial to contemporary life. “All men who believe know to keep their heads cut off above the mirror. What condemns them to fascination (to erotic agitation) is also that which protects them from madness”. As Rimbaud so vertiginously would indicate, the path of poetry leads to hell, to the place where the id is the other, in all senses of the word. Hence there is a tremendous shudder, the danger made visible: beauty is exactly that which we can hardly bear."
-Fernando Castro Flórez (Vodencia Velamiento y Ceguera)
