Root of 2
Nau Bostik, Barcelona, Spain.
Curated by B-Murals
2023
It gathers a series of elements, working as a detective investigation panel, posing questions rather than answers, leaving the viewer to create connections between all of them, look for common points between them and draw their own conclusions.
This mural is part of a personal research process of the author on the
relationship of human beings with the cycles and their natural
environment.
The main character represents the Winter Masquerades, ancestral rituals of the Iberian Peninsula linked to the Winter Solstice. The basis of these rituals is to clean and expel the bad energies of the people and their fields and to attract the good ones, awakening the forces of fertility to augur a good year. These rituals are still alive today in some villages of the Iberian Peninsula. This one in particular is from Entrudo de Lazarim, in Lamego, Portugal. The plan of the Romanesque temple drawn on the wall is from Santa Maria del Bell-Lloc, in Santa Coloma de Queralt. Reference is made (not literally) to the subway water channels that cross it, a subject of vital importance in the location of the temples, for its great influence for the spiritual exercises. On the other hand, the construction of temples in the Romanesque period was directly related to the summer and winter solstices. The circular diagram at the bottom, drawn in black line, explains the reason for the solstices and equinoxes based on the Ecliptic, the line traversed by the Sun over the course of a year around the Earth. The large blue circular shape at the top alludes to the shapes of water and its waves, and to the relationship of water with the celestial. It is inspired by the studies carried out by Parlenko
A random geometric shape, with no apparent order, functions as a representation of Chaos, as a primordial element of catharsis, both of the Rituals of the Winter Masquerades and of all vital processes in Nature, as opposed to Order.
Chaos and Order, Yin and Yang, Life and Death. A woman from Dagestan, southern Russia, shows her tattoos of the Tree of Life and celestial symbols. Tattooing these elements is considered to bring good health, fertility and strength. At the top right we see a ceremonial staff, it is the representation of the family tree and/or lineage of the family, tribe or group to which it belongs. It is usually carried by the leader of the group. It is the link with the ancestors, the trunk of the tree, the axis that sustains the community. One branch represents the feminine side and the other the masculine. In the background painted with a fainter color we see some anthropo-arboriform shapes, half tree half human. They are inspired by cave paintings found in caves and shelters in the 19th century by the French archaeologist Henri Breuil all over the Iberian Peninsula.
The numerical series, which appears at the bottom, is the one that gives the title to the work, it is the Root of 2. It is a number that is present in the geometry of nature and that from the origins has been used in the construction of temples and in mural paintings of multiple cultures to allude to the Deity, to the most sacred and intangible. It is an infinite number, like God.