Pau Lluis Fornés Isern (1930–2006) - Pagesa De Mallorca, Ii

Oil on prepared fiberboard. Hand-signed. Originally part of the decor of a hotel in Ibiza.

This unique perspective on the figure of the Balearic peasant is one of the most fascinating and daring aspects of Pau Lluís Fornés’s artistic universe. Far from folkloric customs and stereotypical images, Fornés reinterprets the Mallorcan peasant by filtering him through the countercultural aesthetic of the 1970s: his peasants shed their static rigidity to transform into aesthetic creatures with flowing hair, hypnotic gazes, and clothing that blends traditional attire—belt, vest, espadrilles—with the psychedelic fluidity and aesthetic freedom of the hippie movement then in full swing on the island. The artist thus transforms Mallorca’s archaic rural iconography into a celebration of emancipation and modern paganism. His rural figures take on the majesty of Homeric heroes or libertarian icons, suspended on a threshold where the ancestral myth of fertile land blends with pacifist hedonism and the aesthetic rebellion of Formentera and Mallorca in the 1970s.

- Unframed image dimensions: 90 x 80 cm / 102 x 93 cm with an exclusive custom frame.