This work belongs to the series entitled “Melothesia”, a term that designated in Greek the affective relationship by affinity between all things, terrestrial and celestial, that populate the universe.

This word is connected with the expression “harmonia mundi”, which the ancients conceived as the harmony or inner concord of the universe itself, from which the idea, so beloved by Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, of a dense correspondence between beings is born, synthesized poetically in the cryptic initial verses of the Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes Trismegistus:

What is below is like what is above,

and what is above is like what is below.

To make the miracle of the one thing.

For centuries, the way of representing the relationship thus established between the macrocosm and the microcosm was based on diagrams and emblematic compositions, some of an abstract nature and others figurative, among which the “anthropos melothetes” stands out for its historical and aesthetic interest. “Homo zodiacalis”. This vast set of enigmatic images has generated a powerful iconography of arcane nature that has inspired me. In the exhibited pieces I return these ancient notions with a mythical-symbolic base, stripping them of the esoteric background but not of their spiritual component, as a new way of capturing and suggesting the ontological sustenance expressed in the hermetic verses.

Project Description

These photographs are the result of a research process initiated in 2005. The images were created by applying a high voltage current directly on the photosensitive material to be later positivized on baryta paper or by contact on cyanotype. Consequently, the process is completely analog. Each representation thus obtained is a unique and unrepeatable fractal image that I control to create portraits of people and flowers; a metaphor of the functioning of the real in the different levels of its existence, from the greatest to the smallest. The term Melothesia that titles the series designates in Greek the affective relation by affinity between all things, terrestrial and celestial, that populate the universe.

This work arises from my interest in the scientific photography of the invisible, and its ability to show a more complex and fascinating reality than we can see at a glance, which allows me to address through the plastic creation the questions about the issues basic philosophies that arise from a conscious life.

About Ricardo Guixà

Ricardo Guixà has a doctorate in image from the University of Barcelona and teaches photography in the Faculty of Fine Arts. Photographer and researcher, has developed his theoretical work in the field of epistemology of the photographic. His creative work explores the frontiers of photography under an existentialist perspective.

His work has been exhibited in various national and international institutions and galleries since 1987, among which the Faber Photogallery in Vienna, Frankfurt Kunsverein, the Santa Monica Art Center in Barcelona, the Amadis Room in Madrid, the Esther Montoriol Gallery, the Fine Arts Academy of Sabadell, the National Calcography halls at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, the Fine Arts circle of Madrid and Casa Golferich in Barcelona. He is currently exhibiting at Revela’t, a Contemporary Analog Photography Festival. Likewise, it has been worthy of different awards such as the prize areas of photography and Young Photographers, and winner of the VEGAP 2016 proposals grant creation scholarship. [Official Website]