Metamorphosis

Life is a process of transformation. Energy isn’t created or destroyed. The only thing it does is transform itself. Death is another step in the endless succession of changes. These are the references that the installation of Gilbert Herreyns in Sa Tanca Vella has led me to think in.

The intervention in the chapel has been long wished, thought trough and conceived in a creative moment nourished by the feelings experimented in illness and the recovery process of the artist. 

The installation gives us an overview of the artist’s works, grouping painting and sculpture, something that he has been doing for a while now in his exhibitions, but which, in this occasion, interact giving them a new dimension, the conceptual one, granting his work a greater projection.

The inside of the chapel becomes the support from where to continue looking for depth, movement, transmitting the contact with the energy of the earth through materials and textures. He takes advantage of the meditation space to continue with his graphic mantras, and in this occasion allows us to physically introduce ourselves into his work. We are no longer in front of it, gazing carefully until we can enter with our eyes the multiple layers of pigment and sand. We go into Sa Tanca Vella and we find ourselves infected by the atmosphere the artist has created.

In the same way that he allows us to join the installation, he does the same exercise. He doesn’t invade the space, nor does he occupy it, he integrates in it. He manages to maintain and enhance the qualities of the space of reunion, of meetings, of meditation. He does, though, introduce an element of tension, the confusion that takes over the atmosphere in the chapel. The graceful spiders that once were sabina branches, weavers of destiny, move over clay earth towards a new transformation. It is concerning to find the lonely animals move together to the mutation, to continue in an apparent state of trance, pausing, with the inevitable process. To abandon this world to move on to another plane, the spiritual one.

Between the Earth and the Sky a horizon of sea, the medium where the wait between life and death passes by. A space for agony where to submerge, where to find oneself and experience peace and wellbeing before transforming again.

And the transformation takes place, the animated crosses with the shape of a blade become latin crosses, the old symbol that unites the concepts of the earthly and the divine. And they ascend to the vault of the chapel, acquiring an ethereal character, continuing the eternal course of change.

Gilbert, from Espai-F we want to express our gratitude for having accepted our collaboration proposal, for the support you have given us and for still having your friendship.

Manolo Oya, Espai_F

La Mola, may 2018.