Rioja-born sculptor based in Soria with an open workshop in the town of Oteruelos. A holistic artist, he is well versed in the creative craft and handles every step of the entire process until the iron sculpture is finished, demonstrating a great mastery of the material: for him, it holds no secrets. He produces singular works expressed in several different ways. His sculptures, inspiring works, are shaped as personal creations that are current, contemporary, powerfully strong and creative. With his tools and instruments, he creates sculptures with just a few silhouettes that outline the interior space. His thematic interpretation of trees is highly sensitive: the way he depicts them reveals his knowledge and mastery of form, resulting in stunning pieces that can be seamlessly placed in the landscape, in natural environments. He also creates figurative works, which he renders by working with iron plates, like his piece called “Don Quixote” and his abstract works. He has collaborated with the master Pep Buigues; with photographer José Delgado Pascual on sustainable development; with sculptor-smiths in Besalú-Girona; in the performance of Dolmen in Lizara-Huesca; in interventions that leave no trace in Valle de Pineta for Factoryart – Fundación Reyardid; with Musa: Espacios Creativos; and with Gemma Pascual, Fermín Herrero and Gloria Rubio, among others. He has publicly installed works in the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Metalúrgicas (Madrid); “A UN OLMO SECO” (TO A DRY OLM TREE), A. Machado, Soria; “Zoilo Ruiz Mateos” Foundation, Rota (Cádiz); 1 Kilómetro de Arte, Ventosa (La Rioja) and homage to “La boina castellana” (The Spanish Beret), Valdegeña (Soria), among others. Project. The artist doesn’t change the world, but he ensures that it stays: we are the authors of what remains, within the visual expressions in the work of memory. Iron craftsman and artist are terms that are applicable to my art with a piece that falls somewhere between art and craftsmanship, criteria that can also coexist. Nor is it the legacy of the Greco-Roman tradition since it falls short of explaining the aesthetic values of completely different traditions. Life emerges and manifests itself following ancestral rhythms, as if it were part of a cosmic plan. The highest degree of natural harmony, the common denominator between the growth of forms and aesthetics, is found in plants. All it takes is a tendril, the spiral of a root, the unfurling of a hesitant branch, to understand the universe. Like Schumacher wrote: small is beautiful. By wresting the qualities and sinuous forms of iron in its own colours, the shapes are made flexible in the vibration of the discontinuous line in its movement that incorporates the botanical; clarity triumphs with its own light, the rhythm of the composition, the tensions between form and space, must flow in poetic simplicity. I feel that I am one of those avant-garde artists who wanted to change people and the world. I use art as a way to redesign society, beyond simply creating a work of art. My path is not a straight one, and it veers off according to what I need to express at any given moment. Process. The direct forging allows the artist to strongly perceive a variety of composition of distorted symmetry and alternations in his metallic calligraphy against the density, simplicity and fullness of the everyday environment. The singular sculptural application of riveting and welding is also called “drawing in space” because of the way the elements of the form are joined together, lending the iron a sense of soul. Space is the key word in the theory and practice of art which, just like love, makes the world appear perfect.
is a piece about finding oneself on the Camino de Santiago. Concepts, fertility, germination, motherhood, a sum of past and present. What is real is the present, and the past is constructed with the reality of the present, disregarded by the current frenetic pace of our lives.
“I feel that I am one of those avant-garde artists who wanted to change people and the world,
I use art as a way to redesign society”
ISIDORO SÁENZ
