ANTONIO DÍAZ GARCÍA - ESCULTURAS

provocation bears fruit: an explosion of whims which, although in the form of seemingly impossible trails, invites us to enter into the ever more ambitious world of the sculptor’s expressive demands. He is convinced of the need to overcome the material limits of the iron and even his own physical constraints. The collection that comes out of this phase represents overcoming these constraints and becoming airborne, the beginning of a new expressive rebirth, the desire to hold firm, faith in his hands, heart and in his own dreams. It is a series that is more complex and multifaceted, but all the while retaining an air of naïveté and freshness that it has come to mark AD’s work. The exterior is now denser, but the content maintains its grandiloquence. Clear, limpid, almost crystalline messages in a language that is free of ambiguity; it is simple, uncluttered and brilliant, composed of a few discreet abstract forms, without embellishment, just relaxed and totally frank. To simply resume: a collection of freely-accessed syllogisms that culminate in a series of truths as large as they are irredeemable. One might even say that the sculptor has no end, that he doesn’t even contemplate having one. Neither does he even value one. It is in itself part of his work, insomuch as it burns and becomes whatever he does with it; a two- step, a silent dance, burning ice and frozen fire. Zealous in its intention, it fights by sapping strength from his tenacity in brawls that always end up in a draw, only to start the epic struggle once again, without drawing breath. An endless contest in an endless story dotted with episodes that did or did not happen, but could have happened, dotted with people that were, with absences that are present all the time, every day, for what they did and what they stopped doing; an ancestral evocation, a succession of flashbacks. A fable that occurred in a place not too far away, with good people who did what they knew, whether they knew the consequences of their actions or not. An unending story that is consumed amongst the embers of a shelter where hope rests in the warmth of a sometimes blinding fire. The iron whisperer takes shelter in his longings, away from whatever storms may say or bring, to placate his ire in the contemplation of the element that pacifies the irascible metal He keeps his eyes on the flames, and draws new sirens on his head, a tireless searcher of memories and hidden moments, of sensations yet to be identified, half-completed challenges. His collection of figures with which he gives his whimsy full rein is resplendent, with sumptuous forms, some impossible, some almost illusory. As attractive and fickle as a beautiful woman in a lover’s gaze, the figures stand challengingly, aware of their enchanting power, searching for involvement, a gesture, a caress, enchantment. A delight that celebrates good taste and excellence in execution. A collection of sculpture that is explicit, emphatic and totally captivating. This is the representation of an approach, an honest position to be adhered to and from which to face the vicissitudes of life. Somewhere to rest before you set off on your path, without complications or excess; merely a manifesto that can be read, that does not shout and scream, that is overwhelming in its sobriety. Like mute witnesses to the path of time, sheltered from conjecture, AD’s symbolic creations remain loyal to a contemporary, and perfectly justified language that doesn’t alight on useless questioning and moves down paths that are not so far from those of human understanding, or the concerns that trouble our existence, or indeed the sacred totems that he so personally crafts, giving special attention to the development of forms and the density of materiality. Page 75 “ Anclajes ” (Anchorages, 2008). Solid iron. Melis pine stand. 135 x 40 x 30 cm. Without moving far from his premise, AD follows a path of clean recognition, in search of fullness, not materially empty. He does not explore hollows, he simply and plainly draws. And for this he makes use of lines that construct sketches and ideograms. It is in itself one of his works, both hypothesis and conclusion; there is no mimesis. In its essence it questions existence and its vicissitudes, the intrepidness of determination, the thrust and strength required to take the path chosen. It also questions the disjuncture between what one wants and what one should do; between escaping and staying; between being what you want and loving what you are. Page 76 “ Encrucijada ” (Crossroads, 2008). Solid iron. Walnut and iron stand. 170 x 62 x 42 cm. As if demanding a kind of harmony without which no postulation is valid, AD makes an homage to balance, deliberation, equanimity, crossing spatial borders with his profuse creativity, isolated in his workshop where no wind blows, allowing himself to submerge himself into the privacy of the garden of his muses, feeling the bark of centenarian olive trees’ torturous trunks. Trees, which in their natural asymmetry find their own centre of gravity, infiltrate their deep roots into a large part of the champion metalworker’s oeuvre, conspiring together in the same move, filling their lungs with air, looking towards a common aim of eurhythmy, synchrony and abundance. Page 78 “ Equilibrio ” (Equilibrium, 2009). Solid iron. Melis pine stand. 192 x 70 x 60 cm. One should always reflect when we look deeper into an artist’s rationale. Far from being precise, the work in itself, as monumental statuary in an embryonic state, aspires to transcendence as it is being shaped and formed, in every one of its folds and points of inflection. AD’s abstract sculpture is a dare that plays with imagination, albeit with surrealist traits; a dream-like fantasy, a landscape of the imaginary. It is the rehabilitation of a style that recoups an identity, the evidence of the relevance of the primary, of the basic, of what is truly essential. Concepts made clear through adopting an iconographic profile with a Cartesian orientation, tense and universally significant. Page 79 “ Una reflexión, un impulso ” (A Reflection, An Im- pulse, 2009). Solid iron. Walnut and iron stand. 170 x 42 x 50 cm. Here we find a piece that seems effervescent, growing from outside itself, rigorously observing the aesthetic harmony Page 81 “ Algo visceral ” (Something Visceral, 2009). Solid iron. Walnut and iron stand. 160 x 40 x 40 cm. that so characterises AD’s work. From here on a reaffirmation of his artistic expression can be observed, crossing limits – although without violence, innovating, bringing new and different readings that open up to visualisation like petals in the sun. This expression looks deep once again into the essence of being, into the insides of feeling, into the embodied viscera guided by the enteric brain, into the vault of the naked soul. Rudimentary monuments to what is yet to come, of a artistic uprising that – almost without realising – comes out of his hands, revealing itself, haughty and unchanging, as a manifestation of so much feeling and great effort. Leave the nest and start to walk. Come out of there forever, I don’t want you hidden away any more. The sculptor does not want his work to be placed forever in the same place, for they make their own spaces, recreating stories, shaping surroundings. A live art that speaks for him, and that even tries to reach where he may not be able to. Beyond any dimensional or temporal measure, AD’s abstraction undergoes metamorphosis, flirting with imagination, opening up and closing on its pedestal, searching to last, an illusion of eternity. It lightens its heavy load and sketches an elegant synthesis of itself, but without forgetting the connection to all those principles that marked its genesis. Page 82 “ Levántate… y anda ” (Stand Up…and Walk, 2009). Solid iron. Walnut and iron stand. 160 x 47 x 57 cm.