The Coronation of Ermessenda (Eighteen fascinated elephants with the varicose veins of a mouse)
"Oil on canvas /
6 x 12 m /
Year of creation: 2013-2016"
DIBUIX
OLI
Ermessenda
The queen
Ermessenda of Carcassonne, the first Catalan queen who lived a thousand years ago in a time when everything was resolved through the use and abuse of force, achieved immense power in Europe. But why did this seemingly fragile woman wield so much influence? Ermessenda traded favors for Time: she could restore people to their youth in exchange for what she asked of them. She could make them live a second life or make that life eternal. During the ceremony, the bird-woman crowns Ermessenda, who receives from her hand a snail of Time. Snails bearing the gift of eternal youth that she would exchange for favors.
The Dream Generator
The great dream generator performs acts as deplorable as they are effective. From its abysses emerge small fish with inflated eyes, fragile flying bearers of human dreams... Tonight, they will fly to the queen's bed, reaching her forehead, and they will also reach the foreheads of all humans. When they sleep and the time is right, they will burst their enormous bubble eyes to generate dreams that will turn into fantastic stories, monstrous nightmares, or inconsequential anecdotes, taking advantage of the lack of awareness during slumber.
The Goddess
of the celestial farts
Soaring away from the coronation ceremony is the illustrious celestial flatulence conjurer. She is a genuine goddess crafting delicate bubbles of fragrant gas that evoke tears of joy upon inhalation. She navigates the skies at her whim, and her emissions instantaneously transport those who catch a whiff to the most blissful moments of their past lives.
The mouse
The protagonist
The mouse, concealed behind his column, manipulates the threads of the entire painting. He is the powerful figure in the shadows, for he possesses self-awareness. Armed with his light meter, he prepares to take a photograph.
"Flying elephants"
Flying bathyscaphes
The elephants, potential symbols of power, fear a mouse. They will never become what they could be. The learned "helplessness syndrome". Hereu reduces them to flying bathyscaphes, puppets with pink wings, which he pilots like a child.
Cinto
A friend
Cinto (R.I.P.) is the father of a friend of Quim Hereu. One day, he went to his workshop and promised him that he would paint him in one of the project's paintings. Here we see him holding Marcelino, the skull of someone unknown, but a constant presence in many of Hereu's paintings.