Spanish Mythologies 2023 - 2024

‘Sometimes I doubt my memory and wonder whether I will only be able to remember what never really happened’.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Marina, 1999)

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My paintings are a series of narrative works based on the novel ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ by the late Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I am interested in the complex roles of the Women and the main character, Daniel Sempere, using the voice of the author as a stimulus, layering and painting out to determine the final composition.

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I visited Barcelona and Madrid in August 2022. The neo-gothic architecture, the luminosity of the beaches, the meandering road to Montjuïc, and the cross-country train journey through Spain’s arid interior – places and themes that play such a central role in the novel - have fuelled my ideas back in my Edinburgh studio.

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There is a symbiosis between the way I paint, the narratives in my works and that of the late author’s. He speaks of generations, good and evil, love and lost love, tragedy, and friendship. I fused my visions, my interpretation of his words and his ‘old Barcelona’. I worked from my travel sketches, fashion photography, film stills and antique photographs to instil and create these painterly dream-like visions.

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“Dreams have no titles. ”– Max Ernst

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Elaine Woo MacGregor February 2023