Xavier Robles de Medina
Fires

Excerpt from introduction by Paula Pinho Martins Nacif for Robles de Medina’s Faya Lobi exhibition at Praz Delavallade in Paris, 2020:

Xavier’s work is a slow excavation, or rather: a conjuring, a resuscitation, a long and extended dedication. I have seen Xavier working; his drawing process is slow and determined. In our conversations, he says he is mostly erasing away. From seeing the way the images progress, it feels like coming upon a clearing after a long dim-lit path. There is a trust in the process, a love for the subject, faith that eventually all wil be revealed. I think of the ways we honor and carry our ancestors. We carry (knowingly or not) their promises and efforts to the land, the weights they carried and lifted for us, the paths they cleared for our eventual existence. Sometimes, serendipitously, we will find ourselves tracing their steps and continuing their legacy.

It takes love to excavate our history with kindness. To transform our relationship with a ground that has witnessed so much violence. To kiss the earth and swear devotion to a longevity that lasts beyond our lifetime.

With a fiery love,

Paula Pinho Martins Nacif