ANTONIO DÍAZ GARCÍA - ESCULTURAS

A delightful stop along the path. A fantasy, an allegory of the joy, enthusiasm and recreation that the sculptor feels in every part of the process of gestation of a new work. An unexpected curiosity, a sea anemone placed on a metallic rock unfolds its tentacles towards northern currents that captivated his heart like siren song. Hallucination or mirage, it gains a strange naturalness from its apparent unreality. Here he shows off his trade in a jovial outburst that seems to want to break the solemnity of an almost ritual act, both consecrated and laborious Page 84 “ Una fantasia ” (A Fantasy, 2009). Solid iron. Melis pine stand. 190 x 90 x 75 cm. The development of the creature continues, conquering gaps, reawakening its deadened members, opening its eyes. It stretches out and overcomes the fear of speaking, of being, showing, or achieving. It is an evolutionary process that tends toward verticality and uprising, not only of form, but also of the concept: a personal growth, a complex and exciting transformation from minimalist landscapes to densely-branched fronded woods. Intricate confluences of opinions and contrary emotions, feelings to be protected, carefully- built nests sheltered from storms, where birds made of freedom and dreams are sheltered in the profuse foliage. Page 85 “ La complejidad ” (Complexity, 2009). Solid iron. Walnut and iron stand. 160 x 80 x 80 cm. Page 88-89 “ Inteligencia emocional ” (Emotional Intelligence, 2009). Solid iron. 400 x 400 x 400 cm. A constructor of archetypes, a perfectionist of equilibrium, and illusionist of feeling, AD transfers his universal emotions to his creations, which are always companions, both pilgrims along lonely pathways defined only by the horizon. His fire is born deep inside from an unfathomable epicentre from whence a glow irradiates that is capable of taming ice. Rage and courage tangled in a knot with multiple threads. Outburst and seizure go hand in hand with a lighted gaze and warm surface. From so deep inside, without fuss, going beyond its role in every way, AD’s sculpture is as eloquent in its silence as it is mute in its grandiloquence. Page 91 “ Las entrañas del fulgor ” (The Insides of the Blaze, 2009). Solid iron. Oak and iron stand. 180 x 70 x 70 cm. Page 94-95 “ El timón ” (Rudder, 2009). Solid iron. Melis pine stand. 116 x 65 x 55 cm. Sheaves of branches parched by the passing of time and the caress of the western sun. A worthy creative tribute to nature – an inspiring muse or every outburst of creativity- out of whose whimsical sinuousness grows a kind of shy imagination that soon afterwards slips away into the arms of a cosseted symbolism, as if in search of an undeserving redemption… A taste of autumn, a matured splendour, an outburst of ferocious enthusiasm to live what they feel and to feel what they live, from an accessibly abstract viewpoint that comes close to heavy goldsmithing Page 96 “ Esplendor de madurez ” (The Splendour of Ma- turity, 2009). Solid iron. Iron stand. 150 x 190 x 75 cm. Neither volumes nor conquered spaces. The interfaces of the feeling that hurts and cuts the deepest. Mimetic and creeping structures that join themselves to the skin of his surroundings, waiting for time to pass, for scenes to happen one after the other…for the passing of the seasons. Horizons and horizontality make discreet mention of the nature on whose models they rise up. In communion with the landscapes that shaped their youth, the vast limestone plains, the hills, the grasslands and the lakes, heaped up, as graceful as reeds, branches that are still fresh and flexible that embody the joy and exaltation of the dreams of youth. Page 97 “ Recuerdo de juventud ” (Memory of youth, 2009. Solid iron. Iron stand. 130 x 200 x 70 cm. The tree is one of the most perfect representations of regeneration, of growth, of the life cycle. The inherent symbolism of its verticality, and the triptych of its root-trunk- branches, suggests a connection between both worlds along its main axis from a cosmic point of view, as well as the interval of transition between the two. It is both the tree of truth and life, like those that guard the gates of heaven according to ancient Babylonian beliefs. This mediation in the shape of thick fronds and interwoven curls makes an allegory of the process of the evolution of the idea, and its impetuousness and determination Page 98 “ Ingenio ” (Ingenuity, 2009). Solid iron. Iron stand. 200 x 190 x 180 cm. Page 99 “ Ingenio y experiencia ” (Ingenuity and Experien- ce, 2009). Solid iron. Iron stand. 220 x 200 x 90 cm. Page 100-101 “ Esplendor ” (Splendour, 2009). Solid iron. Oak and iron stand. 170 x 170 x 100 cm. The snake around the main axis alludes to the helix, spiral and cyclical nature of the universe’s doings. It guards the original, primordial equilibrium of creation like Ladon in the Garden of the Hesperides, and it penetrates, like roots, into the heart of mother earth. Page 104 “ La tentación ” (Temptation, 2009). Solid iron. Iron stand. 120 x 55 x 30 cm. Adhering to the firm standard of his intentions, the prolific metal sculptor’s creative desires wind and meander at the same time as he embraces this pole impregnated with an alchemy of wood, resin and essences, with a spectrum of notes that evoke the aromas of rosemary, tobacco and lavender. Tempted to reach for the crown of a lofty pine tree that points towards the stars and around whose soaring trunk it climbs, entwining itself like ivy, sticking its powerful tendrils to the surface of the cold mental to climb up to the face of the sculpture to regard landscapes it had only dreamt of, but knew they exist, because it takes them all in with its gaze. The immaculate verticality of these pieces comforts me. It is the synthetic recreation of an staunchly ethical standpoint, of the strict, severe discipline with which he exhorts the iron’s obstinate plasticity to overcome its own limitations. Page 105 “ Retenido y a la espera ” (Held back and Waiting, 2009). Solid iron. Iron stand. 160 x 40 x 30 cm. This work suggests a slightly more baroque direction in his forms that, without moving from his primordial axes of growth, are more loosely drawn to shelter the engendering of a vague supposition of imagination, without any diminishing of lyric abstraction, noting that both could well not be mutually exclusive. His constant naturalist referent allows him to be rid of any exegesis, given that we find ourselves before a sculpture that sums itself up in substantial, intrinsic forms; forms that far from dissolving or fading, actually become more dense. A recognisable work that has no escape, and maintains the primacy of all those attributes that make up its idiosyncracy. Page 107 “ Evolución ” (Evolution, 2009). Solid iron. Oak and iron stand. 200 x 50 x 50 cm. Page 108 “ Las entrañas del sentir ” (The Viscera of Feeling, 2009). Solid iron. liberties In the maturity of his idyll, the sculptor recreates himself in the achievement of that which is barely conceivable, of that which is only imagined by someone, a fantasy in black and white with which he shared so many sleepless nights of shadow and insomnia, sheltered by reconciliatory hope. This is a powerful line, overwhelming in its discourse, replete with meaning, silent in its message, but powerful in the subliminal, there the artist fantasises and looks for new horizons where he can unfold and reveal anxieties and yearnings. A collection wrenched from his imaginary, it is mythical, legendary, tremendous in form, and indelibly in its heart, possessed of such an emphatic discourse that it causes a cold sweat in he who contemplates a pure work, free of vices, naked and evocative. The work is of a disturbing lyricism, and one must draw attention to the meaning and reach range of a sculptural work that goes far beyond the mere artistic and personal revindication of Antonio Díaz in order to reach the spheres of an extraordinary poetic projection. He legitimises his projecting (and at the same time projecting himself) in a unique way of doing things and Page 92-93 “ Desentrañando razones ” (Deciphering Reasons, 2009). Solid iron. Melis pine stand. 130 x 75 x 60 cm.