A table is much more than an object. It is a space we inhabit. A place for gathering, celebration, conversation and silence. Around it, we share food, stories, affection and memories. Part of our lives unfolds at the table, and with it, our memories take shape. The table is also a place of creation. A surface where hands draw, clay takes form and ideas become material. An intimate space where the everyday and the extraordinary coexist, where lived experience meets the imagination.
Throughout art history, portraiture has been a way of preserving a presence, capturing an identity and, for a moment, holding back the passage of time. But does a portrait need a face? The objects around us, the spaces we inhabit, the gestures we make and the traces we leave behind also speak of who we are. A table after a meal, flowers in a vase, an arrangement of familiar objects. Each holds something of our story. Every scene can become a portrait.
In TABLE PORTRAITS, Maite Morell explores the meeting point between ceramics, painting, still life and portraiture. In her Sicilian plates, food evokes shared tables, celebrations and moments suspended in time. Across the vases of Cobalt & Gold, self-portraits, cats and figures from her imaginary world unfold over the ceramic surface. The vase becomes both vessel and content, an object that holds while revealing a universe of its own. The pieces become portraits of the everyday and the intimate, of inner landscapes and shared memories. Portraits of moments lived, imagined or dreamed.
Every table holds a story. Every story, countless portraits.
Exhibition from 20 November - 7 January 2027
Gema Galdon Hat Gallery (c/ Santa Teresa 3, Barcelona)