Regarding my Sculpting (part1)

“The question is this: how can the condition of viewing sculpture be investigated?” 

If you are interested in that kind of investigation, my blog entry will probably bore you.  
Here I will share thoughts and mostly emotions translated to thoughts that motivate me when sculpting and modeling the figurines presented in my portfolio.  
My expressed desire is that my work avoids explanations. It’s true that a story around a work of art or an artist might add to your appreciation of that work.  
I always relate (in my heart) to works of antiquity which we don't even know for sure they were meant as Art yet they move me/some. 

As the rather cerebralman that I am, Art is that island of peace where my mind calms down, my emotions become clearer, and I feel I'm more in balance with myself, in the world. Or just with myself, that’s already fine for me. 
 
Photographs are said to reproduce accurately what they had in front of the camera lens. Yet a photograph is not that piece of the world. Before photography, many Artists tried to be faithful to reality or consciously biased (touched up paintings of kings and queens) or purposefully delusional (angels with wings and devils with horns). 
Without going through the huge history of sculpture, one can notice (on a digital screen that is) that my works have some attributes:  
1) figurative yet unrealistic 

2) small in size (not ideal for public display) 

3) subjects surrounding the male nude  

Some works of art “need translations” often made by critics like the one in the opening quote.  
I enter a spacious museum room, empty and brightly illuminated. Off centred there’s a thin red line connecting the ceiling to the floor. You can go with a simple personal interpretation and move to the next room or have someone writing a book chapter about the metaphysics of the colour red in empty rooms and how you reshaped the space while moving to the next room. Any of that works for me. I prefer to go with my gut instinct and move on. If I get home and still think of it, if it made some impact on me, I would search and read what other betters think about the red line. 
 
Anything can have an impact on someone. But I wouldn’t call Art the video clip of Alan Kurdi, a 2 year old Syrian boy floating face down on European shores, if you remember that horror we witnessed some years ago, in the news. That impacts me in a different way, it’s a different story, no Art in there. 
 
Back to my figurines. I call them figurines because they general concept of statue projects a work which is much larger (point number 2) 
A figurine can be placed in someone’s home in many places, changing that place in time, based on the mood. It may bug you and make you pick it up, search for executional “imperfections” or change its angle of display, to see it from a different angle. After all, a figurine is 360 images, if you only rotate it on a vertical axis. 

Point number 3. The Man in art. 
Gay men are often dropped in one bucket labelled “passionate about mucho sex”. That’s valid for most men, no matter their natural inclination.  
Some have seen gyms where many gays struggle to pump up muscle beyond Nature’s initial doing. Some have seen works of art where male genitals are larger than a house.  
My figurines pick up on such elements (point number 1) and my personal reasons ( as I dislike explaining my work, I only explain my personal intentions). Changing proportions, I emphasize those body parts and trigger a viewer’s attention and imagination. 
By sculpting or modelling my figurines with such distorted proportions I hope they will make some look at “what’s happening there?”. 
 
Why are the genitals considered intimate and shameful to expose? Is it because the size of a penis translates in our culture to a man’s masculinity?  
Ancient cultures worshipped the penis, considered it a symbol of male-hood, virility, fertility. We turned it into an x-rated body part, when any body part can be erotic and arousing. 

 
Sculpture as form of narrativity is one of the many forms we communicate with each other. The stories in my sculptures start from the inside, reach the cover of the  volumes (the border between solid space and O2), continue on the contour of the sculpture you are looking at, the song line as I call it, and gets out, like the air vibration produced by a sound.  

Intermezzo: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? That’s a philosophical conversation regarding observation and perception. While falling, the tree produces waves in the air, which is the definition of a sound. But if there is no observer (ears) to translate those waves with what we call sound, etc. 
 
I think a sculpture involves a person’s several senses: view of volumes, size, guessing of material and weight, then touching, following the contours with the eyes or hands. When the conclusions of such senses form a mental image, the viewer, if present, brings his personal contribution to the encounter.  
You are free to make your own story while looking at them, filter your thoughts through your past and present, evoke emotions.  
I hope I won’t disappoint but I'm not trying to tell any story. I try to turn into a hard material the feeling of physical pain, some men’s (me included) emotional and mental pain, stemming from the need of dominance or being dominated, from insecurity or fear. 
If my figurine recalls some pain in your life, hold the little statue in your hand and use it as cathartic medium. It’s not a promise it will solve any problem, the solution is not included in the price and if the pain persists, go see a specialist or at least talk with a friend. But you will at least have an aesthetic and sensorial experience. 
 
Exceptions to the semi-figurative sculptures I make are those purely based on my nightly dreams. I dream a lot, too much (!), in colours and sensations, smell and sounds, even specifically in black and white. I seldom am aware it’s a dream but not a lucid one, I cannot directly influence anything, and wouldn’t anyways. Like Art, they’re my escape from a “coherent” reality which I often find boring because in my years of life, Ive seen repeating the same stories, over and over. 
 
One last paragraph in this blog. Two stories regarding such dream-state sculptures. 

Ecce Homo

 
Ecce Homo! 
It’s a statue I carved in a pale pink marble from Greece. In the dream I felt the touch of that potential being  and managed to find in this marble that would reproduce the sense I had. The colour too, pale pink and translucent in parts. I was in the presence of a creature; he had a face like a theatre mask - as you see in the sculpture. The mask was alive, and hold up by a pointing finger. It was  pointing up only when the face was  looking at me. In the middle of the palm there was a hole, I thought it looked like a key hole. The upper body was just this large hand with a mask/face. The person had strong thighs and instead of a penis, another pointing finger, horizontal this time.  
We didn’t speak words but I felt very good in his presence, we shared some understanding of sorts, which I now lost. I tried to recall that “conversation” while sculpting but I only fragments returned in the form of feelings. 
 
The second sculpture I would like to talk about is Mars of Willendorf. 
The small figurine found in Willendorf which we known as Venus, due to her voluptuous feminine, maternal forms. Dated in the Paleolithic era, some 27.000 years ago, was carved in limestone and carried around by a nomadic community. 
The one I carved (in alabaster) is a bit larger but not for a particular reason. Here’s how it came about. 
Dream: I was looking at this little marvel (the Venus figurine) and felt I was there and then, not long after it was made. It felt like a victory, that someone in the tribe I was part of, was able to carve it. A lot of thoughts were crossing my mind but not in a “modern coherence” so I only remember that my brain was responding to this figurine and felt this “victory” in the muscles of my body. Suddenly, and with no shock of surprise, in my mind of there and then, my mind of now became present, as an observer and while returning to the present day, still in the dream, I knew I had to carve a Man for Venus. He had to bear signs of fertility, just like Venus. Hence, the large penis. That also stood in for a sign of force, advance, determination. In the image that I “brought back” from the Paleolithic, Mars had no tools, I didn't remember his arms. But he had large feet, from walking the land, migrating from one place to another. Strangely, I remember his face, which was my face, a mix of images, pondering on the whole situation, thinking, trying to understand and take a decision. I tried to carve all this in my Mars, as a memory of that dream. 
Well, now a question for you, the reader: if you didnt know the story I just wrote, would you have guessed it? I would really doubt that! But if by looking at my statue, turning it around and holding it in your hands, if it created any thoughts, would you discard them entirely just because they were not the thoughts and reasons of the maker? I would hope not! 
They are your creation, triggered by my work. The sound you hear when you are close to the tree falling. Now nothing goes to waste. 

Mars of Willendorf