Marta Leyva uses the communal ritual of eating as a tool to change social conventions and play with the limits of decorum. Her scenes evoke the imagery of déjeuners and country gatherings in French bourgeois painting, but revisited from a contemporary, free and amoral perspective. The after-dinner conversation becomes a choreography of uninhibited bodies, affected by a Dionysian energy that intoxicates and transforms them. Influenced by the Mediterranean pulse that permeates her work – and which constantly refers to the landscapes of her native Catalonia – the characters respond to the call of Bacchus, the vibrant desire of the nymphs and the playful flute of the god Pan, who draws them into celebrating pleasure without measure.

David Pablo Nicolás

Art historian