Malefic

LANDSCAPES AND FIGURES
Some artworks seduce me by their sheer presence. Others provoke me. They shake up something inside I cannot ignore. Luis Royo, with an alchemist's patience and an obsessive thoroughness, builds images which arouse in me total bewilderment. It's useless to try and decode the message, to try and figure out the whys and wherefores. In the end, that uncontrollable maelstrom prevails over reason and theory.

Luis skews whatever he's painting. Perhaps it goes unnoticed by some and they only see his images as those of women on a fantastic background. But Luis renders the classical variety of painting, landscape and figure, with astonishing skill. He manipulates and alters the eternal myth of the beauty and the beast by offering us cold and distant beauties with a look of feline indifference; they are self-sufficient yet incongruously attractive in the midst of his unworldly settings. They are the counterpoint in his sober compositions.

He fills his airbrush with darkness and covers the canvas with virtuous accuracy. He paints ever-enfolding milky fogs a la Lovecraft, resembling steam emerging from some lurid scheme. He imposes on himself the penance (or the exorcism) of painting the thousand crevices of an eroded stone, the round folds of some fabulous animal skins, the reflections of enigmatic waters, the sparkles of forgotten metals, the nuances of bones of an unknown being...and gives all those elements an unnatural look which makes them disturbing.

Some are awed simply by the perfection of Luis's women, but I prefer to look beyond that. Luis's imagery provokes frenzy in the unprotected, albeit attentive, spectator. And that's the sublime power of Luis Royo. Enter the maelstrom.
Miguelanxo Prado