THE PLACE

1976

From the floor of the butcher’s shop near the parish church of Santa Maria, via the gateway to the Rectory at Garriguella, as far as the studio in Carrer Major, Teresa’s place has always been near her family’s dwelling, as a child or as a mother. Thus, her biography is closely entwined with the biography of the place, according to the terminology borrowed from the great humanistic geography, and hers is very deeply rooted. Just as for Charles

Lamb's servants, her homes have been deeply planted and ”are not rooted up without blood”. And so, the Gallery where her works are displayed could not be too distant either. Opened in October 1976, the Galeria d’Art Banyoles was to last until the end of the century in a whirlwind of exhibitions, not only of the work of Teresa Vallmajó, who shows her paintings there almost every year, but of all the others who go to make up the local artistic tradition: from Lluís Roura to Clapera Mayà or Kim Gratacós, Benet Costa, Xicu Cabanyes, Manel Pigem or Granados Llimona.

2000

As the new century began, the gallery was handed over to the next generation under the title of Estudi Blanc, bringing in other names from the Catalan artistic panorama such as Guinovart, Mathias Krahn or Sol Fàbregas, Antoni Llena or Rafols Cassamada... until the crisis of 2008 brought business to a sudden halt and art and artistic objects receded into the background for a severely affected middle class. But beyond the exhibition area, the adventure of Estudi Blanc brought forth an encounter which would become much happier and longer lasting: the collaboration between Teresa, mother and painter, and Mireia, daughter and historian.

It is in the collective work of the two of them that Teresa Vallmajó's artistic language finds other forms of expression and where Mireia’s viewpoint as an art historian is enriched by direct contact with creation. The first work to be achieved thus is “Grocs” (Shades of yellow) where lines and edges dissolve towards a language which is more post-impressionist than impressionist, followed by ”Els vidres d’en Marc” (Marc’s glasses) evoking Rothko’s backgrounds or “Roses blanques sobre policromia” (White roses on a polychrome background) which recalls Matisse’s daring chromatics... but always with Teresa’s delicate brushwork, in a portrayal of the precarious movement and fluidity of life, as can be seen in some quasi peonies from this first period of inflection which she prefers to merely sketch in.

2020

It is following the captivating current of this new diction that both come together at Carrer Major 5, where not only a daughter but all her children and grandchildren confabulate to give expression to the perfect domestic scene: the former aspect of the premises at the end of the 19th century, when the neighbours at Can Iani displayed lighting and lamps, is brought back to life, and where there is a library which documents the artist and her teachers and a homely feeling which alludes precisely to Teresa's world. The Fons d`Art Teresa Vallmajo, a place apart, a paradise.