Rosa Vives Spanien, b. 1949
Galerie von Opel is pleased to present the work of Rosa Vives which is part of the collaboration with Museum Mater (Barcelona) and exhibiting from the 5 October to the 9 November in our Gallery.
Rosa has pursued her career independently since 1972, focusing primarily on painting and engraving, while maintaining a quiet distance from public display outside her studio. Alongside her artistic practice, she has devoted herself to the study and research of the theory, history, and practice of art, a dedication reflected in numerous publications, the leadership of research groups, and curatorial projects for exhibitions.
As Henri Matisse once observed: “Little by little I came to discover the secret of my art. I realised that it consisted of a meditation on nature, in the expression of a dream constantly inspired by reality.” (On Art, Barcelona, Barral Editores, 1978, p. 55). This sentiment resonates profoundly in her own work.
In the heat of a Barcelonian summer, she began to shape a new composition inspired by her friend Valentina Asinari’s evocation of the Engadin: its traditions, its sgraffito, the Romansh language, and above all, its magical mountains. These recollections intertwined with her own memories of Catalonia’s landscapes, especially Montserrat, whose peaks have accompanied her vision since childhood.
From these impressions arose the first gesture: the creation of a wide, open triptych, structured upon an approximate mapping, remembering Delacroix’s words, “exactitude is not truth” of two territories, Catalonia and Engadin, two “terres fermes.”
This mapping unfolds like a slow journey, at once real and imagined, stretching from west to east, offering a vision of the outside seen from within. It is as if one were gazing through a three-pane window or looking out from the small windows of a train carriage, where the view is physically fragmented yet remains whole in perception. The narrow fractures of the triptych mark slight absences of matter, but they do not disturb the continuity of sight. On the contrary, the vertical divisions reinforce the solidity of the landscape, while the framing brings unity to the whole holding together an ordered chromatic range and the emotional poetics of colour.
From the vibrant reds of the west to deep maroons, from the fresh greens of spring to the chestnut tones of alpine forests, from the Mediterranean’s intense blue to the pale blues of distant mountains and thawing waterfalls, the work unfolds as a meditation on memory, nature, and the inner dream.