La Pell de la Terra
2021-2025
These abstract paintings, which evoke paths, earth, and stone, take shape as post-historical altarpieces that transform both ancient places of worship and contemporary exhibition spaces into contemplative environments dedicated to a sacredness that is both new and ancient—inclusive, universal, and non-denominational—placing the earth and the mountain at the center of the visitor’s inner experience.
Texts and paratexts
Series
Santa María de la Sierra
La pell de la terra in the hermitage of Santa María de la Sierra, Farrera (Lleida, Spain). The installation has been exhibited between 2021 and 2025.
Replacing traditional Christian iconography, these abstract paintings evoking paths, earth, and stone are configured as “post-historical altarpieces” that transform former places of worship into temples devoted to a sacredness that is both new and ancient —inclusive, universal, and non-denominational— placing the earth and the mountain at the center of the visitor’s inner experience.
This installation is configured as a kind of post-historical altarpiece that replaces traditional Christian iconography with a large abstract painting that refers to paths, earth, and stone, thus highlighting the sacred component of walking and the mountain.
In the bare sobriety of the hermitage, a powerful dialogue is set in motion between the place and the work, illuminated exclusively by the natural light that enters from the east through the small windows of the apse. There is a very special moment after dawn, when the first morning sun appears from behind the mountain —these days, right behind Pic de Màniga— and casts its first ray through the apse window of the hermitage of Farrera: in the silence broken only by the symphonic singing of birds, we witness the constant unfolding of life tinting the central panel of the altarpiece with light.
Sant Feliu de Barruera (2020)
Festival Errant, Sant Feliu de Barruera. Curated by Jesús Vilamajó. Photos: Jesús Vilamajó and Marco Noris
El tapís-retaule que ha instal·lat a l’església de Sant Feliu és la substantació de la terra sobre el paper, un exercici de geotaxidèrmia que s’intergra perfectament a l’absis de pedra del romànic. És com si hagués escorxat la pell de la terra per traslladar-la sobe el paper. No és casual que el títol de la peça sigui justament Pells.
- «Rodolo placentós pel segle XI». Extracte de l’article de Núvol Errant per l’Alta Ribagorça de Bernat Puigtobella
In these images, my installation in the Romanesque church of Sant Feliu de Barruera, presented as part of the festival Errant, Itineraries of Art and Thought 2020, September 2020.
“Skins” originates in the journey I made from Barcelona to the CAN in Farrera, in Pallars Sobirà. The installation in Sant Feliu de Barruera is configured as a kind of altarpiece that replaces traditional Christian iconography with a large abstract painting that evokes paths, earth, and stone, thus highlighting the sacred dimension of walking and the mountain. At once imposing and discreet, the intervention foregrounds the spirituality and sacredness of the place, transforming the old church into a contemporary place of worship: universal, non-religious, and non-denominational.
ERRANT are itineraries of art and thought, in which word and image—in their most radical, experimental, and contemporary expressions—enter into dialogue with the landscape, architectural, historical, and industrial heritage of the region of Lleida.