TANIA MARMOLEJO: FIGHT OR FLIGHT
VILLAZAN Madrid is pleased to present Fight or Flight, a new solo exhibition by Tania Marmolejo.
February 25 – March 28, 2026
In this new body of work, Marmolejo delves into a state that is at once deeply intimate and universally shared: the suspended moment between the impulse to move forward and the need to pause. The exhibition takes its title from one of its central works, Fight or Flight, where a female figure riding a horse embodies a decisive instant; to brake or to continue, to confront or to flee. This tension is not merely narrative; it is physical, psychological, and spiritual.
Throughout the exhibition, Marmolejo’s protagonists inhabit twilight landscapes, open shorelines, and dreamlike backgrounds that function as mental terrains. Their amplified, penetrating gazes do not aim to describe a portrait but to reveal an interior state. Some figures appear at rest, others in latent tension; yet all share a common pulse: the experience of facing a feeling, a memory, or a decision that demands moving through something in order to continue.
Fight or Flight reflects on this primal survival mechanism, the instinctive response to fear, desire, or uncertainty, and translates it into the realm of the soul. Marmolejo explores how this impulse is felt in the body, in the heart, in consciousness itself. To fight or to flee? To advance or to contemplate? In her canvases, the artist transforms this duality into a space of silent observation, where tension and contemplation coexist.
True to her painterly language, Marmolejo combines refined oil technique with a symbolic sensitivity that dialogues with the tradition of portraiture and allegorical painting, while introducing a distinctly contemporary introspective dimension. Horses, animals, delicate gestures, and golden or dusk-lit atmospheres construct a poetic narrative about vulnerability, inner strength, and trust.
The exhibition ultimately proposes a profoundly human experience: an invitation to recognize “fight or flight” not merely as reaction, but as awareness; a moment of contemplation in which, before deciding, we encounter ourselves.