Galería Fermay presents Spinning Rumours Ópalo, a solo exhibition by Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen

alería Fermay presents Spinning Rumours Ópalo, a solo exhibition by Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen that opened March 21^st, during Art Palma Brunch 2026. Known for immersive installations that explore light, reflection and spatial perception, the Antwerp-based artist duo transform the gallery space into an environment of shifting colour and perception. Coinciding with the exhibition, the artists also launched their new major publication at Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma, marking a notable moment in the island’s contemporary art calendar.

Carla Arocha (b. 1961, Caracas) and Stéphane Schraenen (b. 1971,Antwerp) have worked together as an artist duo for over two decades, following established individual careers. They are internationally recognised for a multidisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation, painting, drawing and photography, as well as for their distinctive large-scale modular mirror curtains. Central to their work is the use of pattern – through repeated forms, textures and painted structures – which acts as a visual filter between the viewer and the surrounding space. Through repetition and rhythm, these patterns shift perception and heighten awareness of context by working primarily with reflective and translucent materials. Arocha and Schraenen challenge how objects are perceived in relation to their environment, foregrounding the illusions and complexities of contemporary visual culture.

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In Spinning Rumours Ópalo, Arocha and Schraenen take the opal as a starting point, drawing on both its refractive physical qualities and the many meanings attributed to it throughout history. Long associated with ideas of creativity, protection and spiritual vision, but also with misfortune and uncertainty, the opal sits between myth and material reality. Playing with this tension between the esoteric and the empirical, the artists invite viewers to experience how colour, light and reflection can alter perception. Anchored by large translucent hanging screens and a site-specific plexiglass installation that reshapes the gallery space, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive abstract environment that gently invites viewers to reconsider how we perceive and interpret reality.

Spinning Rumours Ópalo, a solo exhibition by Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen, Installaiton view at Galeria Fermay. Photo: Grimalt de Blanch

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s visitors move through the exhibition, a sequence of installations transforms the gallery into what the artists describe as a kind of ‘thinking machine’, where perception is constantly recalibrated. The experience begins even before entering the gallery, with the street-facing windows blacked out, making a clear cut between outside and inside. Works such as Lumen Internum (2026), a large-scale
video projection of slowly dissolving opal imagery, and Ópalo (2026), a series of suspended translucent screens that reorganise the main gallery space, create shifting fields of colour, transparency and movement. Throughout the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to navigate the space actively, repositioning themselves physically and visually as the installations unfold around them.

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Arocha and Schraenen also presented their new book, Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen: Monograph as Project. Edited and authored by Barbara Vanderlinden and designed by Irma Boom, the volume reconsiders the artist monograph as an active space of critical enquiry, tracing both the artists’ individual trajectories and their long-standing collaboration from the early 1990s to the present. Bringing
together extensive visual material, essays, case studies and conversations, the book situates Arocha’s practice – shaped by scientific inquiry, embodied vision and Venezuelan modernism – alongside Schraenen’s multidisciplinary background rooted in Antwerp’s experimental scene. Contributions by Mónica Amor, Marc Donnadieu and Philippe Pirotte, together with interviews by Helen Molesworth and
Hans Ulrich Obrist, explore key tensions in the work, from abstraction and system to perception, spatial disruption and collaboration.

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Galería Fermay, founded in 2022 by Antoni Ferrer and housed in a former light- industrial factory in Palma’s Blanquerna neighbourhood, provides a resonant setting for Arocha and Schraenen’s exploration of perception and space. Working across emerging, mid-career and established practices, the gallery foregrounds a curatorial programme attentive to experimentation and contemporary visual
discourse. Conceived as a living space and meeting point for artists, collectors, professionals and art lovers, Fermay once again functions as a discursive platform that fosters reflection, supports collecting in all its forms, and connects a broad and diverse public around contemporary art.

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Spinning Rumours Ópalo is on view until May 22nd, 2026.
@galeria_fermay

@arocha.schraenen

https://www.galeriafermay.com/

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Arocha and Schraenen also presented their new book, Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen: Monograph as Project, edited and authored by Barbara Vanderlinden and designed by Irma Boom.