I’ve always been much more concerned about the wrinkles in my brain than the wrinkles on my face”, she says, sure, at a “glorious” moment in her life because, she points out, “when you grow up, you solve many things that get in your way with yourself”. Lita Cabellut (Sariñena, 1961) presents her first exhibition in Madrid and does so with a celebration of spring, light and life. It’s La niña en la mirada (Iniciaciones mistéricas de la pintura de Lita Cabellut), 18 portraits that will be on view until June 8 at Opera Gallery inspired by the Mayan festival of Colmenar Viejo, which since pagan times celebrates spring rebirth of the earth with children dressed in flowers.
“This series – he emphasizes – is born from a desire to share light and positivity, color, in these moments that we are going through in history, in which catastrophes are taking on an immensity that seems to affect us a lot, but also too little. What is happening in the world is giving us an anesthesia of joy, of the prospect of the future, of power. And this is very bad for the soul, for the organism, for living. With this series I share beauty and tenderness, and above all, the future: all the characters are children”.
Cabellut explains that he didn’t know about Maya’s party until a few years ago. “It started with a pagan festival, they banned it in the Inquisition, but they never finished extinguishing it. And I thought it was wonderful to claim the celebration of spring, of the good news, an offering to the most necessary, our environment, nature, the earth”.
In front of this vital series, he has simultaneously worked on a “totally opposite” one on Goya’s Disparates. “I magnify them with a magnifying glass to refresh our memory. The series about Maya’s party has not only been necessary to bring good news, but also so that it could keep the days and hours, sometimes very conflicting, representing the Disparates, which are a bath of reality, of brutality. I had to separate my workshops into two. One was hope and color, where I recovered, healed myself, and then returned to my Disparates”, he recalls. And he remembers that “after them Goya emigrated, he left. I think he could no longer witness what he is talking about. About forced marriages, rapes, domestic violence, violence against the weak, about how an ignorant, stupid, chatterbox is the buffoon and he is the one to be listened to…”. And he believes that today “we are passing, as a society, a very important ethical examination. We have to assess what number of ethics we will have”.
Of course, personally, he admits, “I’m in a glorious moment. And after 50 years of painting, technique is no longer a main thing in my life. It has become part of my hand, my feet, my movement. I didn’t expect that growing up would have so many advantages. Every year I am perhaps closer to understanding what art is. And that only comes by working it to powder over the years.”
