Painting allows Roberto Fabelo to give full rein to the fascinating inhabitants of his imagination. Across his work, human beings mingle with birds, dogs, fish, insects and fantastical creatures, while apparently ordinary situations develop into elaborate and often bewildering tableaux. The effect can be grotesque, comic, sensual or unsettling – sometimes all four. Fabelo’s world is recognisably his own, but it also has deep roots in the traditions of the fantastic and the grotesque, from Bosch and Goya to the theatrical absurdities of modern surrealism.

The theatrical quality of Fabelo’s imagination becomes especially apparent in works like his Pequeño Teatro (Small Theatre) series from the 1990s – groups of human and animal figures occupy carefully constructed stages, as though performing some mysterious drama whose rules we have not quite understood. Mythological characters, animals and fantastical hybrids mingle with recognisably human figures, while everyday objects can acquire an unexpected significance, so the resulting scenes often have a dreamlike quality.

The female body occupies a central place in this imaginative universe. Fabelo’s women are frequently voluptuous and openly erotic, but they are rarely presented simply as conventional objects of desire. They may become mermaids or nymphs, acquire the heads  of birds, or find themselves unexpectedly accompanied by animals. Birds are among Fabelo’s most persistent motifs, appearing as companions, disguises, extensions of the body or fantastical alter egos. Roosters, hens and peacocks carry human figures, replace their heads, or overwhelm them with extravagant plumage.

What makes these paintings so engaging is Fabelo’s refusal to separate the erotic from the ridiculous, the beautiful from the grotesque. His women are sensual, but they inhabit a world in which anything can happen. Desire can acquire feathers, a beak or a tail. A bedroom can become a theatre, and an apparently familiar human body can belong to an entirely different species.