Layers of forgetting Series

Ángeles Alcántara presents her work ‘Capas de Olvido’ (Layers of Oblivion) in the temporary exhibition hall of the Bullfighting Museum.

It is a group of works that has been inspired by the autobiographical book of the same title written by Robert Ryan, North American bullfighter of the sixties and seventies of the last century.

Ryan’s book begins with a trip to Mexico as a child and the gift of a red toy bull that will haunt him all his life, leading him to become a bullfighter. That red bull culminates in the image of Robert Ryan and his wife, painted in yellow by Ángeles Alcántara. From Robert’s red to Ángeles’ yellow. Before arriving at the yellow bull, the artist has read ‘Capas de olvido’, has taken notes, has underlined words, has stolen details from Ryan, has transformed the chapters of the book into colours: ‘La niñez dibujada’ is green, ‘Temporada desmontada- Verbena’ is pink. As the artist explains, ‘I used the book as a guide for my drawings because I liked its delicacy, softness and poetics’. The result is a collection of twenty drawings in which the artist presents her plastic vision of another side of the cultural prism of bullfighting.