"THE APIARIES" of Humbert Cazorla

Cazorla provides plastic solutions from three-dimensional structures born of profound reflection and investigation on the abstract form.

Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Garzón, Uruguay, is pleased to announce a solo show of the latest works by Humberto Cazorla, opening July 16, 2014. Sculpture has been the passion of Humberto Cazorla, renowned Venezuela creator, who has just completed the installation of “Honeycomb drops of Ambrosia”, a monumental work, 8.75mts/cm wide by 2.60mts/cm. in height, in the Park of Sculpture, which is directed by the Pablo Atchugarry Foundation in Punta del Este, Uruguay. This work reveals Cazorla´s passionate relationship with steel and exuberant color. It also highlights the violent energy, which he applies with vehemence in the execution of his three-dimensional work. “Honeycomb drops of Ambrosia” forms part of the “Series of the Apiaries”, in which the sculptor has been working for the last several years, and which, in medium and small formats, he presents to us today in this one-man show.

Soldered steel and acrylic industrial-grade paint, respect for the materials, and brilliant colors, have been the basic tools for Cazorla. In the series of interviews with the author of this text he has stated that “…. I have always used some color, sometimes camouflaged, a turquoise blue, for example. With steel the red-orange color is important. In reality I am not frightened by color, but a red, a yellow, can have a very strong influence when the work has to be looked at from a distance. Nevertheless, I want the iron to be present within the color out of respect for the material. I like to respect the nobility inherent in the steel”. In the series he proposes a symbolic relationship which exists between the color and the characteristics of the apiary and its protagonists: the yellow corresponds to the worker bee, the red to the exciting honey and the oxide of the steel to the protective role of the wax.

Cazorla´s sculpture is abstract, both in its formal configuration and in its meaning, even when the title of the series refers to a part of Nature with which the spectator is familiar. Nevertheless, he does not stray from his interest in certain organic elements that break with the rigid and static aspect of the central body, reminiscent of his work in past decades where the organic and sensual dominated the main thrust (of his work).

Here in “Series of the Apiaries” the cylinder becomes the main protagonist. It repeats itself as the “main” body of a three-dimensional structure, which, when segmented vertically, harbors other dynamic elements of the piece. These elements can be graceful coils of wire or aggressive edges and spikes in motion, which emerge from burrows in the cylinder or main body, or again could be a sort of drape which has the appearance of a twisted cloth, as in the piece where this element stands out with its strong yellow color.

Cazorla´s work is defined as abstract without being able to characterize it as part of one of the prevailing vanguard movements that dominated the second half of the twentieth century. In reality, Cazorla has not been a figurative artist in any of his creative phases. His abstraction is defined by a relationship between the geometric and the organic that annuls any relationship to reality. In the formal he transgresses the conventional conceptions of three-dimensional work by suggesting, in the spatial, an extraordinary monumentality even in the works of small format. The works present themselves as strong conceptions of art where the plastic quality imposes itself as the only value of their content. Material, color, texture and structure, define them in their own context as a spatially live organism. Two values are counterpoised, which paradoxically, do not contradict each other. Rather, they are complementary. On the one hand the rationality of the abstract structure, and on the other, the emotiveness of the chromatic force expressed in the context of each work.

Humberto Cazorla defines his own style. He provides plastic solutions issuing from three-dimensional structures and concepts born of profound reflexion and investigation on the abstract form.

Dra. Bélgica Rodríguez
Caracas, April 2014