LIDIA MASLLORENS

In the exhibition, however, the spotlight falls on the most primary and essential element of her work: the stroke. A stroke that does not stem from the wrist but from the body as a whole. The movement is physical and direct, almost choreographic, as the artist bends over the canvas, transforming it into impulse and energy. The white lines on black, persistently present in the hair and faces edges, reveal themselves here as a structure of movement.

The exhibition includes a selection of original works that dialogue with a special project: the creation of a jewelry piece for Unión Suiza on the occasion of their 180th anniversary. Far from being a decorative extension of her canvases, this piece in black gold has represented for Lídia Masllorens an exercise of radical synthesis, bringing her to a distillation of her practice down to its minimal element. In a true exercise of depuration, the artist has seeked, among countless sketches and drawings, the gesture capable of containing all the others: the essential and irreducible stroke. The lines that conform the jewelry piece can be read as pathways moving in parallel toward the same point, a subtle allusion to Unión Suiza’s journey through generations, while also reflecting the artist’s own trajectory. Observing the jewel, one can appreciate tiny technical interruptions that cut through it and that are essential to its construction; these intervals become a metaphor for the inevitable fractures of life and the moments that transform our path.

For the artist, this collaboration has felt like an unexpected gift. The challenge to work with a material foreign to to her usual universe has compelled her to focus on the essence of her artistic practice and to explore new possibilities within abstraction. The works gathered for this exhibition reflect this moment of transition. In the faces, the eyes, nose, and mouth remain present as points of anchorage, while the stroke gains freedom and autonomy. Camins de la memòria is not only a portrait exhibition, but an exploration of the gesture that originates them, the energy that sustains them, and the movement that continues, bearing witness to the exact point at which the recognized artist transforms and renews herself.