Greta Alfaro's solo show entitled 'In Praise of the Beast' opens this week

Greta Alfaro, the first beneficiary of the Genesis Foundation Scholarship programme at the Royal College of Art, has a solo show opening this week entitled 'ELOGIO DELA BESTIA' (In Praise of the Beast) that will be held at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Huarte, in Pamplona, Spain.

Greta finished her work In Praise of the Beast in 2009 during her first term at the Royal College of Art.  In her annual report to the Genesis Foundation, Greta described the work as follows:

"It is a video piece of an approximate duration of 14 minutes.  On it, a giant cake is placed in a snowy forest at night.  After a little while, we can hear the frightening growls of some strange animals that we cannot identify in the darkness.  The animals surround the cake without leaving the darkness, drawing circles around it, getting closer and closer each time until they finally come into the light.  They are a couple of wild boars, that in the way they approach the food presented to them, suddenly transform from wild beasts into cute and vulnerable beings.  The impression given by the piece to the viewer changes as well when they comically roll over the cake becoming all white, like the meringue and the snow around them."

Greta continues by explaining what she aimed to achieve with this work:

"In this work I aimed to work with some of the reflections that usually inform my practice, but in a bit more of a humoristic way.  I intended to play with our inner feelings of fear and vulnerability; fear of the uncontrolled, of the wild, fear of the unknown, of darkness.  Even if these feelings have been present in all cultures and epochs, I find it very relevant to propose a reflection about them today, since we live in a society obsessed with control and security."

Video stills of In Praise of the Beast are below:

To read more about the Genesis Foundation's releationship with Greta and the Royal College of Art, please click here.