Miguel Ángel Vigo

Santiago de Compostela, España

The sons of Fóbetor.

Dreams are the terrain of uncontrollable intimacy and relaxation that we all enjoy and suffer. They can sometimes leave us a bitter taste, terrify us or even make us hate the awakening. There are many situations that can unfold, but all are characterized by the secrecy and veiled appearance that imprint on the memory of those who act in an uncontrolled way. Hypnos, the sleeping god, had three children: Morpheus, who appeared in human form, Fóbetor, who adopted an animal form and Fántaso, whose appearance was vegetal or some fantastic creature. Curiously, the human being in his firm intention to separate rational man from other living beings did not choose Fántaso, capable of mutation to the ugliest of creatures, as that responsible for nightmares. Instead, it is Fóbetor, the animal, the irrational, the passionate ... the god who embodied the horrible dreams. In this series, Miguel Ángel Vigo concentrates his attention on the sleeping subject, bound by his own nightmare. Formally, the shouts of the protagonists emerges a mask that is rooted in ancestral rites of their native Galicia, such as Samain a Druidic festival that goes back to the dark ages before Christianity and culture imposed by the so-called civilized peoples. In this celebration of Celtic origin, the inhabitants painted their faces to frighten the evil spirits in the night of transition between the summer and the dark winter. There are still similar rites in parts of Africa and Papua New Guinea. The individual paints the face to prevent that God finds it when the night falls, to try to deceive the Fóbetor through the painting. Art as a repulsion from the nightmare, from the unwanted. The figures, tied and shrouded, incapable of moving freely, show us their masks with those who hope to get rid of the evil that accompanies them or that could come from the future. An uncertain future in the midst of an economic crisis and values ​​that crosses old Europe from end to end. All this helps the author to reflect on the human condition, to confront obsessions, to demystify. In this stressful transit, man can become a doll with a ragged body, an unstable figure or a being degraded and tortured by atrocious nightmares. Because Vigo abandons his creatures in the hands of Fóbetor, and his nature ends up confusing or imitating the animal, the beast with its convulsive gesture, in its sharp cry, with its potential cruelty or in its own frustration by being incapable, horrified, to free himself from the ropes that bind him.

Topographies

Portrait is a constant in art history. Few artists have resisted treating this discipline throughout their careers, and within it the backdrop or landscape is an essential part of the narration of the image. From the detailed medieval descriptions, through the introduction of perspective in the Renaissance to the baroque atmosphere, the connections between figure and background make up a code of narrative in which we can rely on the discernment of the personality, character or state of mind of the person portrayed. In this work, the boundaries between the figure and the background are blurred until they merge at the point where the figure and the background are the same thing. The figure is the landscape and the landscape figures in a kind of personal and emotional geography that explores the creation of identity and the importance of the environment and the context that surrounds us. An environment that shapes us and builds, but also corrodes us.