On Christmas Eve 1975, Dolors Bertran Porta, born in Agramunt, the mother of Josep Guinovart Bertran, and therefore my grandmother, died. This death marked a before and after in our lives and without a doubt in the work of my father, Guino.

In 1976, looking for a way to anesthetize the pain of the death of his mother, of Grandma Lola, and fleeing from memories closely linked to the Christmas holidays, my father decided to take us to Algeria, where December 25 is an ordinary day. .

It was his first trip to North Africa, in fact, his first trip to a world that until then had been very alien to him. What he did not suspect or intuit was that his escape was going to reconnect him with a landscape that was already part of his DNA: Agramunt.

Perhaps it was the emotional fragility of the moment, perhaps it was because the land challenged him directly, but the truth is that Guinovart, stepping on Algerian lands, felt at home. The sand, the landscapes, the colors, the architecture of the towns... everything moved him, shook him and transported him back to the arid land, to the June sun and to his childhood memories closely linked to the land of Agramuntina.

And from the shock these pieces that we are exhibiting today were born, works that speak to us of North Africa, but at the same time of Agramunt, of Urgell de Ponent, where the artist felt and knew he was close to his mother. As if it were an umbilical cord, Algiers nourishes Agramunt and Agramunt nourishes Algiers, and both nourish Guinovart.

Earth, lands, mother, experiences and emotions are translated into these works that are now exhibited for the first time at the Espai Guinovart in Agramunt.
Welcome to Lands, a thousand landscapes, but only one roots.

Maria Guinovart
exhibition curator