Prelude #0035 Rhaetulus didieri

Gold is a controversial symbol. As brilliant and blinding as its mystical presence may be, it also contains the inequality embedded in human history. That tension surrounding the element is perhaps what led Bryan Romero to use gold leaf in his work on kraft paper.

The works brought together in this exhibition move through different moments of his trajectory—from his earliest critical and experimental pieces, through the gilded insects of Prelude to the Nimbo Universe, and arriving at Der erste Baum. Yet all of them speak to one another with a coherence that seems not so much constructed as discovered. Cockroaches, moths, and beetles coexist with the anonymous mass of disoriented bodies in the city, with the torch among ruins, and with the solitary tree in a dry forest. They all share the same question: what resists, what remains, and what is sacralized in order to survive time.

Hier, gold leaf is neither decoration nor luxury; it is the opposite. It is the resource that grants presence to what is fragile, what allows an insect or a freshly cut tree to establish itself at the center of memory. Ink anchors them to the world; gold draws them out of it just enough.

This exhibition is an invitation to follow that light wherever it may lead.