In the Cyclades Art Gallery on the Greek island of Syros, Alba exhibited her paintings on the theme of Humanimal. The exhibition was a great success, attracting nearly 30,000 visitors in just fifteen days.
Alba’s exhibition explores the fascinating relationship between human and animal through the lens of Greek mythology. In these ancestral tales, gods freely metamorphose, blurring the boundaries between the divine, human, and animal realms.
Through her works presented at the Cyclades Art Gallery, the artist creates mystical “HumAnimals” that remind us of our deep connection with the animal world. She thus challenges the modern view that tends to strictly separate humans from animals.
The bull occupies a central place in the exhibition, an emblematic figure of Mediterranean mythology. It appears in various forms: the heifer Io, Zeus seducing Europa, and the Minotaur. This figure evokes Dionysus, god of fluid identities and fertile contradictions.
In her paintings, Alba reverses traditional roles: it is no longer the human observing the animal, but the animal fixing its gaze upon the viewer. Through this reversal, she invites us to rediscover our own animal nature and embrace a more nuanced vision of the world, where human and animal are one.
As she emphasizes: “The boundary between Human and Animal is extremely thin, if not nonexistent.” Her work reminds us that perhaps it is in the mirror of the animal that we find the most faithful reflection of our humanity.