STOA
Estepona, Spain

STOA

For the VOLTA BASEL Art Fair, STOA Gallery proposes a dialogue between the portraits of three different Spanish artists (Xevi Vilaro, Conchi Alvarez and Salustiano) making up a “vanitas”, a pictorial genre of Spanish Baroqueism, which allegorically, calls upon the fleeting and brevity nature of life, based on the immortal phrase of Ecclesiastes: Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas.

The oils on methacrylate of Xevi Vilaro are allegories which use contemporary pop language, where women are portrayed as the new Grim Reaper of the XXI Century, driving our thoughts immediately to the subject of death and the fleetingness of life. Facing them on either side, we have two paradigms that embody the masculine and feminine world.

On the one hand, Conchi Alvarez explores the ritual of the bullfight, a historical practice in the Mediterranean, parting from the ritualistic ceremonies held in Crete, where priests, men and women had to face the bull. The artist´s interest does not reside in showing the challenge of man versus bull, but instead the ritual of how man transforms both physically and mentally to overcome the fear upon the impending threat of possible death.

On the other hand, Salustiano´s portrait represents the idealization, the most exquisite contemporary neo-figuration at the highest execution. His works, of elegant classicism and neat finishing, play with   the sculptural effect as the figure seems to emerge from a flat background. The profile portrait of ‘Zahara’ which shows infinite female beauty, forces the observer to stop and reconsider the futility and fragility of life.