Joan Barbarà Spain, 1927-2013

In Palacio de Mallorca, Joan Barbarà invites us to an exercise in both interior and exterior contemplation. Through a play of thresholds—a half-open door, columns, the gallery opening onto the garden—the artist constructs a scene where architecture and vegetation engage in a silent, luminous dialogue.
The black-and-white checkerboard floor guides the eye toward the exterior: a lush Mallorcan garden, filled with warm, intensely Mediterranean vegetation. The classical columns and shaded porch evoke the calm of a stately home, while the paintings hung inside offer a subtle autobiographical or intimate touch, as if time itself dwells within the walls.
The work is also a reflection on light and space. The painting plays with contrasts: dark and illuminated, interior and exterior, static and alive. Barbarà captures that suspended moment where everything seems tranquil, yet full of latent presence.
The restoration carried out by Virgili Barbarà in 2024 has preserved and revitalized the nuances of this domestic and poetic scene, maintaining fidelity to the artist’s original vision while introducing renewed freshness.
A work that speaks of home, memory, and the beauty of the everyday in harmony with nature.