O siameses do círculo (The Siamese of the Circle)

The founder of Atlántica, Menchu Lamas is one of the leading women figures in the Galician creative scene’s renewal in the 1980s. She was part of the Rompente poetry group and Buades Gallery circle, one of the main epicentres of Spanish artistic modernity, participating in notable exhibitions
such as Five Spanish Artists in New York. Her painting is based on an exhaustive study of composition and colour fields, on which she builds a conceptual universe anchored in the iconography of Galician folk tradition. Lamas works in large format, conceived as a space inhabited by iconic emblems that move between figuration and abstraction. She uses flat, vibrant colours, revealing her interest in the primitive, in a constant dialogue between tradition and modernity. O siameses do círculo, a work presented at the II Salón de los 16 (2nd Salon of the 16), is organised around a cross-shaped composition, in which elements such as the circle, hands and cats become totemic symbols of ancestral meanings regarding the feminine and the masculine.

María Teresa López Flores