The King of the Serpents

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Sala Atín Aya, ICAS, Seville – ARTSevilla OFF, 11–21 October 2017

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First solo exhibition by Rafael López-Bosch in Seville, hosted within the OFF programme of ARTSevilla 2017 by Sala Atín Aya (Calle Arguijo, 4), a municipal space that, in October, opened its doors to parallel contemporary proposals, giving visibility and dialogue to emerging artists within the Andalusian context.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the mythological figure of the basilisk — the “king of the serpents” of Greco-Roman and medieval tradition, a creature born from a serpent’s egg incubated by a rooster, whose gaze and breath were said to be lethal, and whose origins can be traced back to Egyptian beliefs about venomous serpents and dominion.

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López-Bosch does not recreate the legend as folklore, but interprets it as a metaphor for the darkness concealed within fantasy: what children’s narratives (such as those of Disney) cover with layers of colour and morality, while revealing manipulation, poison, and control beneath the surface.

Through animal narrators — aggressive, vicious, bestial figures — and abstract stains that evoke closed dreams, the repressed visions that appear when the eyes are shut, the work projects human impulses: desire, aggression, contradiction, and manipulative power. The central installation (Fantasía, 2017) constructs a confrontational space using resin, enamel, and organic/metallic elements, where fantasy does not console or resolve, but instead exposes what lies hidden: the raw mirror of the unconscious.

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For those who did not see it: an unreal and hostile territory that dismantles the innocence of legends, showing how stories — ancient or contemporary — both conceal and at the same time reveal the most disturbing aspects of the human being.