Valencian History and Culture

Ball de Quatre en Plaça Patraix

27/08/2021

Watercolor, china ink and digital post-processing

Selected to be the official poster of the 2021 Popular Festival of Patraix, neighbourhood of València, Spain (link to the statement about this from the Association of Neighbours of Patraix here).

“Ball de quatre en Plaça Patraix” means “dance for four people in the Patraix square” in Valencian, the other official language in the Valencian Community with Spanish. in 2021, the festival of Patraix commemorated the 150(+1 because of the pandemic)th anniversary of the annexion of the village of Patraix to València, as part of the rapid expansion of the capital city at the time, so it was important for me to create an illustration that would highlight Valencian history and tradition. I used watercolor to paint the church of Patraix, El Sagrat Cor de Jesús, in the background, and dancers dressed in traditional Valencian attire in front of it, performing the aforementionned Ball de Quatre.

The church of Patraix is very well conserved and can be admired to this day still. In Patraix and everywhere in the Valencian Community, troupes of dancers regularly perform and help keep the beauty of Valencian traditional dances alive. I feel very honored that the association of neighbours of Patraix selected my work to represent these two aspects of Valencian culture!