SIAMESES

Romulo Royo has made the theme of Siamese twins the central axis of his visual imagination. What is sedimented here is not only the question of mirroring or reflection, but also an allegory of the position of the self in relation to its environment—that is, the passage from the other to the communal—without ever falling into literalism or into the (pamphleteering) rhetoric of the political. “In this series,” Romulo Royo writes, “under the title Siamese Twins, the individuality and collectivity of human beings in this society are explored by associating them with the figure of Siamese twins. This entire proposal concerning the Siamese entity consists of questions that seek to be posed. Society increasingly imposes collectivity in order to evolve according to its own criteria, leaving aside individuality and identity, which are also important for evolution, creation, and the very question itself.”

Royo raises the question of whether we are unique or whether we are mass—whether we possess a singular existence or are, perhaps, Siamese. “In Siamese twins, although one needs the other in order to live, there is friction between the two. When living in society and collectivity, does the same not occur when we seek to recover individuality and identity?” Siamese twins materialize the question of shared feeling, even when distance or separation is imposed. To a certain extent, what Romulo Royo is formulating is an analogy between the subject and society—that is, between the empathy of Siamese twins and the capacity of the collective body to feel conflict: catastrophe, contamination, or epidemic. Everything that unsettles us, or also that which paralyzes us and leaves us without response. The enigmatic faces and the raw corporeality of this artist interrogate the viewer; they are not mere mirror-like surfaces or polished façades. On the contrary, they lead us into a territory in which no answer will ever be definitive and meaning will never be exhausted.

Fernando Castro Flórez Art critic and aesthete