Sanguis Christi

This is the first piece for my series ‘Sanguis Christi’, which is a parallel project for my other series of drawings ‘Wonderful Blood’ (click here to this other series). They both work together and belong to a bigger project in which I am researching on all kind of “Holy Matter”, but with these two series I am exploring the matter of blood in western christian blood cults and devotions.
‘Sanguis Christi I’ (43X31 cm) Mixed media. -Álvaro Barcala ©-




Ángel Caído De Ningún Sitio (Angel Fallen From Nowhere)

I have published in the following blog a prose poem (in spanish. September-October 2016)) and a musical choral piece (December 2016) that work together under the title 'Ángel Caído de Ningún Sitio' (Angel Fallen From Nowhere):


The Birth Of God

I've made this choral work in and for Nativity's day and I've called it 'The Birth Of God'.

One of the things that occupied my thoughts and feelings in this day is the idea of how tragic and conflictive was the context in which this event happened, despite the affable and edulcorated way it is presented nowadays with naive images of the nativity, merry carols and hyper socialized festivities.

But the mystery of incarnation occurred in total marginality (in a stable in the middle of nowhere with any kind of assistance for the birthing, which might have been quite traumatic), marked by solitude and soon conditioned by persecution and slaughter. No merry ceremony, or any kind of ceremony, for one of the most important and relevant moments for christianity, the eclosion of the incarnation of the divine into flesh.

Extrapolating this to our personal account it makes me wonder if the birth of spiritual awareness in our inner life normally happens in a context of interior marginality and solitude, or literally under such conditions.

In any case, I dedicated some valuable time this Nativity's day to meditate, visualize and internalize this "event", having actual good feelings for what  actually meant and means, but having very present at the same time the conditions under which it all happened.

This work is a musical outcome of such reflexions: