Ana Barriga

El Niño de Elche

Our lives are built from a myriad of daily rituals, many of them unconsciously assumed as necessary for the passing of our days. The liturgy of mealtimes, the way we get out of bed, the order of the clothes we wear, the way we go to the bathroom, the place where we read the last pages of a book before going to sleep, the first kiss on a night of love or the cup where we pour the first coffee in the morning, everything has its logical place in the inevitably random compositional game that sustains our being in the world. Every ritual act is related to the fact of celebration. A social fantasy that keeps human beings in contact with the sources of creativity through gesture. It is true that if there is something that differentiates us from animals it is the fact of celebration, but Ana Barriga has not come to our world to paint for us a materialistic reality that is always subjective, but to remind us of the imaginative possibility of our hearts. We should not forget -and that is why the existence of Ana's work is so relevant and necessary- that when we talk about looking at or observing images we are inevitably talking about our imagination and its power to generate change. An abolition of our powers and our perception. The fascinating possibility of appreciating every minute the laughter, the song, the caress, the dance, in short, any absolute gesture that changes our life at every moment. And there is no better way to be with oneself than the imaginative, that reverie -always in private- that achieves the visualization of clear images that invite us to that feast of the senses. That is what Ana Barriga's cat plays at. Playing as a vital political act, since there is no greater political attitude than the one made from playfulness. But let us not understand this cat of Ana's -and from today of all of us- as a nihilistic being self-absorbed in her detached experience. Her fantasy does not belong to the world of the illusory, but is capable of generating links with reason and the world of facts, that is why -and from there- every act of fantasy must be inclusive, never exclusive.

This sometimes human animal shows us the legitimate excess of celebrating, which is nothing more than opening up to the other or to the other. Ana knows well the embrace without method, that which recognizes the material as touch or smell and not only as dazzle. Before a large part of a conservative society that longs for a fixed and unchanging life, there is the need to create a society full of dreamers and visionaries who remind us at every moment of the power and capacity to fantasize beyond but also here and now. Life as a constant creative act, art as a constant vital act, a constant party with oneself, like Ana Barriga's cat, the one that knows that a perfect day is the one in which you have been able to appreciate the daily miracle that your angel has in store for you. That is why -and like Ana's cat- you can smile and feel happy, you are in front of him.