Roser Oduber

Etymologically, the word demented comes from the Latin word Dementis, which literally means "the one that comes out of your mind". With this declaration of intentions, Roser Oduber presents this exhibition, based mostly on topics such as madness, sanity, vulnerability, introspection and the limits of the human mind. Some of his works, endowed with certain sinister aspects, confront us with the intricacies of mental health, others call us to more personal introspection, to consider the thin line that separates our thinking from right or wrong. From the healthy or the sick, from the passionate to the obsessive. From the critic to the paranoid. We find represented both content and contingent.

Starting from the doubts that the artist poses about illness and creativity, we look towards science. There are similarities in the ability to collect information in creative people and people with mental illness, although it is also true that a mental illness does not presuppose in any case an unusual creativity. The recent studies of Professor Fredrik Ullen, of the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, analyzed the dopamine receptors (D2) present in the thalamus of creative people, and found that their density was lower, an aspect shared by schizophrenics. He also mentioned that people who have a history of mental disorders in their family are also more creative.

The cerebral thalamus is responsible for processing information and filtering it until a reasoning is performed in the cerebral cortex. "Fewer D2 receptors in the thalamus probably cause a lower degree of filtering of the signals and therefore a greater flow of information" (Fredrik Ullen). In this way the artist does not have a reasoning that would probably restrict his thinking or freedom of expression, and as the information received is also greater, creativity is also at risk of suffering from a mental illness. This would be a possible explanation of why madness is considered a premise to be an artist. Anyway, it is not a conclusion drawn by the artist, although it does make us doubt about the limits of the mind.

When the artist fails to create he becomes the object of his own violence, that is, if he is blocked by some aspect, such as a psychopathology at a sharp moment, he suffers a frustration that results in an impossibility to create, which is to his it produces even more frustration and more mental instability. On the other hand, expression and creativity allow the artist to expel his anguish or create idyllic scenes where this psychopathology or affliction does not exist. On the other hand represent this cognitive struggle or even serve as a stimulus. It is important to create a debate regarding the healing of the artist, the representation of the same, self-portraits and how it serves not only as a palliative but as a communicator to sometimes make the viewer reflect or visualize their reality.

Far from the early stages of figuration and Oduber evolves towards the more material aspect. Pivot between primitivism and informalism without using the constant recurring symbols in that period. The bodies and heads gain corporality despite representing more abstract themes such as feelings, emotions, madness and sanity. The heads are the central axis of the exhibition. The mostly anonymous faces speak to us of universal concepts, but above all they speak of themselves. The human speaks of the human. The artist of the artist.

The spinal columns that appear in some of his paintings remind us of those snake skins used in his work before. The column, receptacle of the central nervous system vertebra reflex thinking. Connect mind to body Parallelism that makes us think about the artist. The chromatic range remains neutral, with predominance of ocher and earth. The strokes, rather energetic and watered down give the work a certain dreamlikeness, of heaviness of sleep. Introspection becomes present and takes us into the universal psyche of the human being. We seek to find out how we work, how we think, how we react.

The images that refer to delusions and manias are presented similar to those that represent axons and neurons. Neurons as the epicenter of thought need to join through axons to function properly. In these images we see these solitary cells, isolated from the rest. Some of them represented with organic matter, sick through red tones. They look damaged and lacerated. Perhaps you use these images to talk about disconnection, both emotionally and socially. From the inability to function properly in solitude, from the need to "axonize" us to form a healthy tissue. Hobbies and delusions as a personal insulator of the rest, a minuscule scale and also macro.

The duality of this image presents an opposite binomial. In it appear two opposing minds. On the one hand that one that seems marked with blood with the word D-MENT and the one of its side practically diluted in the black monochrome. Both, practically the same in all their forms, move us to opposite descriptions. The one that seems alive, is also the one that seems sick. The one on his right, perfectly formed but already extinguished, appears to us devoid of life. We do not know where the artist is taking us, but we can intuit that she leads us to reflect on how the insane bustle, the one that damages and damages the brain and thought is also the one that gives more vivacity to the brain. This reflection that accompanies the theory exposed previously dignifies dementia through rapid and incisive thinking. Before the spectator it remains to choose, life or death, health and monochromy, or existence and suffering.