ARTESANTANDER 2024

Our proposal for ARTE SANTANDER 2024 is based on the return of the multidisciplinary artist Rosalía Banet to painting. It has been more than 10 years since she last painted, at least not in her most traditional format, oil on canvas. During this time, using paper and sculpture, she has continued to advance and investigate the themes that most interest her: the body, territory and food, while maintaining the aesthetic that runs throughout her career, such as the fragmentation of the body, the simplicity of shapes and colours.

The series of paintings presented here are small-format paintings that represent the relationship between human beings and nature. They symbolise the return to the earth, in search of the urgent need to reinstate ourselves in our habitat, as a fundamental way to protect it.  The main pieces are very intimate portraits of small earth goddesses, who speak of life and death, fertility, diversity, symbiosis or mutualism. 

These portraits show the relationship of human beings with nature, with the animal and plant worlds.  Alluding to the etymology of the word human, which comes from the Latin Homo Humus, which literally means man of the earth. In other words, we belong to the earth and not the other way round. The paintings start from the body to take us to the territory. Some pieces under the title of Rebirths turn the body directly into earth, into humus that nourishes the earth and generates new life.  They speak about transformation, of returning to the earth.