Fèlix Roca. Barcelona 1991
Faith, Fear of Death, Childhood and Play.
The sum of the four concepts can be understood as the daily struggle of adult life. Not as a pessimistic vision, nor as a hymn to innocence, but a consecutive presentation of individual postcards. Allegories in which one of these four concepts is more prevailing than the others.
Faith and fear of Death, an action-reaction of one another, which come together to oppose each other in an often everyday scene.
In my painting there is always “The kid”, which represents innocence still intact. This child is always Jesus, innocent, unaware of the martyrdom and suffering that is to come.
Sometimes he is replaced by a flower, a flower sold, cut from his plant, symbolizing beauty yet to be corrupted.
And then… a threat.
A threat that is only there but does not break the scene: Adult life, the end of innocence. Death.
He started with an easily identifiable skeleton, but switched to a plastic bag.
A common and everyday object, meaningless and ugly, but in it they take the things that we are supposed to buy and need for our maintenance, for our needs in a productive life in society.
However, if you put a plastic bag upside down, it becomes short of breath: Death.