Lantomo’s and Xurxo’s works coexist in an aesthetic dialogue where minimalism and visual purity are the key to the composition. Although the development of content restricted to floral exploration, on the one hand, and to portraits, on the other, it could refer us to antagonistic realities, where the human and the mundane oppose each other; the truth is that both creators share essential artistic maxims that approach their works in a genuine and almost natural way.
Starting from a careful choice of elements, with the recreation of realities devoid of the artifices of the moment, Lantomo and Xurxo inquire about the capacity to evoke sensations and deep thoughts that transcend the (apparent) simplicity of the object. This way, their pieces share a spiritual and inspiring narrative channelled through the serene looks of the portraits and the careful structure of the flowers.
Gómez-Chao's proposal is based on an element that has always been recognised as a representation of beauty and which in many cultures throughout history has been taken as a symbol of the beautiful and the ephemeral. Flowers, in fact, are something momentary and light, a random gift of nature that refers us to the paradox of temporality and contingency. This artist uses these referents to create abstract and ethereal scenarios that invite reflection on the fragility of being and the inner balance.
On the other hand, Lantomo conveys in her work to the undoubted influences of her stay in China, a vital experience that she transforms into delicate and subtle portraits, where the central motif is cleared up to be reduced to the slightest expression without renouncing the impact of the message at all. As the author explains, the inspiration of her pieces begins in traditional Chinese and Japanese compositions, which she strips of vegetal decorations and artificial ornaments to leave the intense, full looks, and the explicit message of colour.
Precisely in this cleaning and purification exercise, both authors complement each other. Xurxo seems to pick up the discarded flowers of the traditional Asian compositions to offer with them the other colourful version, and exuberant at times, of pictorial minimalism, transformed into photography. For her part, Lantomo takes refuge in the grey and black, and gives only room for red, to articulate a discourse of determined and proud faces, in which one can glimpse the melancholy and the strength built around human fragility.
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