Perfume of Black Flowers. Visigothic Botany (hereafter PFN), the latest exhibition project by Nieves Torralba, presented at the E CA in Riba-roja del Túria, represents the happy conjunction of two of her great passions: drawing as the inner expression of a vital need and archaeology as the trace of past cultures. The present as the inexorable time of all action and the past as a place that activates the imagination. From this dual perspective, it is no exaggeration to highlight the exhaustive field research she has carried out. PFN addresses both a tribute (the most eulogistic form of citation according to Umberto Eco) and a personal reinterpretation of/of one of the most important Visigothic archaeological sites in Spain: Pla de Nadal. The site of Valencia la Vella, the Hermitage of Santa María de Lara in Quintanilla de las Viñas (Burgos), the National Archaeological Museum (Madrid), and the Museum of Prehistory in Valencia were obligatory visits as complementary sources of information.

Geometry, one of the most primitive and universal forms of abstraction, articulates a model of beauty in which the simplicity and purity of lines are multiplied into harmonious patterns. Plant life has been an endlessly simplified and repeated model since time immemorial, and the Visigothic period in Spain was no exception. Nieves Torralba has expanded her personal repertoire by reworking some classic floral designs from the period: trifoliates, pentafolias, and hexafolias. With a historically introspective nod, she has included three of her first "flat" holograms (contradicting the three-dimensional magic attributed to this spectacular technique) that are strictly hexafoliate. Torralba approaches the practice of drawing from a deliberately relational and contextual perspective. The chapel of Sta. María Magdalena in Peregrinatio de Sagunto (2009), Echar raíces (Taking Roots) at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City (2010), Tiempo parada (Time Stopped) at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center in Havana (2014) are clear antecedents of this operating system that he has also applied on this occasion. In addition to the temporal incursions, there are other directly spatial references: the cypresses that stand at the entrance to the E CA, or those reflections of light that he imagines flickering in the palatine complex of Pla de Nadal. Juan Bautista Peiró Universitat Politècnica de València