This November 20th 2019, Christie’s Paris held its auction 17717 Bande dessinée et Illustration, in which they offered a total of 316 lots of international artists. Among them, Hergé, Albert Uderzo or André Franquin.
Romulo Royo‘s Flowers and Thorns V was featured in this auction. It was sold for a final price of 15.000€ / 17.396,62$, going over and even doubling estimate opening price of 7.000€ / 8.118,56$.
2018
Acrylic and oil on canvas
116 x 89 cm (45.67 x 35.04 in.)
Flowers and Thorns V belongs to series Flowers&Thorns by contemporary artist Romulo Royo. In this series we see beings linked to our ecosystems, however alien they may seem due to their otherwordly appearance. Plants, and their reproductive structure, flowers, make it possible for these species to be perpetuated, and are also the protagonists of this collection. But, who are the flowers? Female bodies are portrayed in each of these pieces.
On the other hand, another of the questions that come to mind when viewing these pieces is, “What do the thorns mean?”. They could be viewed as something akin to osteoderms, those bony formations that many animals developed and they are a way of communicating that ambiguity, those tensions and balances.
It could be said, if framed as a myth or a legend, that each of the paintings in this collection represents a different version of the origin of life, existing in that primordial chaos. Each of the figures represented has the strength to face what the future may bring. Or are they, in fact, challenging us?
