Date: 1998
Technique: Bronze, iron and silk
Dimensions: 260 x 100 x 125 cm aprox
Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma
Reg. no.: 446
Not on display
In La Dama, Bernardí Roig presents a freestanding sculptural volume in black and white, a recurrent colour binomial in the artist’s recent imaginary. Black is the naked torso of a body with female attributes, presenting the face completely covered in white silk; the pregnant figure holds a skull, towards which its gaze is directed, establishing a link between them. Part of a portrait with real measurements of his wife, pregnant with his first daughter, whose legless torso is supported on a bundle of circular metallic forms, like a repetitive stroke, in reference to the sketch of someone who draws compulsively in order to find a perfect shape.
The literary references it points out to us are inevitable. We fancy the image to be a reformulation of the Shakespearian monologue of the Danish Prince Hamlet, ‘To be or not to be’, placing us before desire and longing, fantasy and dream, the cycle of life and death.
P.R.