Artist Statement
I am an artist that I have dedicated myself to investigate through the sculpture the forms in which the art approaches the human themes. Concepts such as farewell, loss, mourning, assimilation, longing, joy, beauty and immortality, are present in my artistic production because it is an entirely humanist work. These concepts transfer them to my work and treat them as energy, essence, and human spirit, which allows me to create a figuration absent from figuration, where the viewer is in charge of supplementing those omissions.
In my work, various topics are present: Universal Culture and Immigration, Essence and Human Spirituality and Decontextualization of the Object, something I call “Desnominación”.
In the first, Universal Culture and Immigration, I integrate the element that migrates (not only emigrate individuals, migrate culture, ideas) and distribute symbologies belonging to old cultural that help me to reinforce losses and presences throughout the history of The humanity. Example is the Palimpsest series.
In the second, Essences and Spirituality reflects the human interior and work themes such as music and dance seen as states of creation. The religious theme is posed with images of monks as introspective entities.
In the third, Denomination of the Object, decontextualize to the object and the contextualized metamorphosed in a new one. Example is the Hedonism series.
The influences in my art are marked by Giorgio de Chirico and Fidelio Ponce de Leon, the first gave me the concept, the second closed the figuration. Impressionist sculptor Medardo Rosso, in the treatment of works, Salvador Dalí with metamorphosed forms and neorealism in human absence and the presence of objects.
I have always worked in noble metals such as copper, brass, bronze, silver, gold in a traditional way because I believe in the beauty of the trade of classical masters. Each blow, each welding allows me to take from a sheet unrepeatable lights and shadows, textures, beautiful traces of defects and inaccuracy, obtaining works of a strong visual apprehension with a timeless halo, which acquire used objects.
My proposal as an artist is to impact the public, provoking visual confusion to provoke reflection and mental processes of thought that without assuming a religion, a specific political or cultural framework, the viewer can discover the spiritual part of what we are as humanity.
Artist Biography
For more information about Octavio Cuellar, please see Octavio Cuellar’s Biography.