Le Renard, les Mouches et le Hérisson 2021

Curator: Okay, immediately, I am getting intense Beatrix Potter vibes. There is such an uneasy tenderness, even a strangeness here… it's gripping, isn't it? Editor: Indeed. This piece by Carlos Sablón, acrylic on canvas, created in 2021, is titled “Le Renard, les Mouches et le Hérisson”— "The Fox, the Flies, and the Hedgehog.” Curator: It's a real head-scratcher, but in the best way! The surreal blending of this idyllic almost old-world illustration and fairytale fantasy creates this palpable anxiety and anticipation. What will happen next, one wonders? I think my interpretation depends upon my state of mind each time. Editor: It's true. The piece exists in an ecosystem of its own—seemingly separate and distinct. If you look more closely, it offers a window into questions of precarity, of relationality, especially where interspecies dynamics are concerned. The fox, which has, since time immemorial, represented a sort of slyness or deceptive ingenuity is here, somehow, very vulnerable, confronted with the imminent, perhaps even hyper visible, threat of flies. Curator: Precisely! It’s more than just meets the eye. There's a lot of dialogue happening through symbols. Speaking of the flies, one has to wonder whether those miniature specks actually signify something more meaningful on the wider horizon of events, just like a metaphor about looming disaster—a plague. The hedgehog appears passive—and maybe that says more about complicity than we realize at first. It's as if our hedgehog friend wants to fade into the wallpaper. Editor: Absolutely. Sablón’s careful arrangement prompts us to reflect upon the political economy of survival. The vulnerability on display—particularly the fox— forces a reckoning, an exercise in asking ourselves about the uncomfortable ways that living beings can either offer or deny care. Is this an illustration of the tragedy of the commons, for example? Curator: Exactly. We are reckoning with an intricate portrait of how creatures navigate landscapes filled with potential harm. You can admire its strange beauty—or recognize a cautionary fable about climate catastrophe. Or both. Editor: Indeed. I find it remarkable how it can speak so vibrantly across multiple registers simultaneously. Curator: It's a journey each time you look at it. There is no full stop. Editor: I wholeheartedly agree; a painting that holds within it a myriad of unfolding possibilities.