Oswaldo Vigas. Large format sculptures.
Li Group Art Center, Caracas, Venezuela

Oswaldo Vigas: Sculptor

An evident process in the analysis capacity of the form and inquiry towards the testing of materials, merge in a coherent manifest in the work of Oswaldo Vigas (Valencia, Carabobo State, 1926).  An indefatigable art worker, his creations are perfectly identifiable, intensely mixed up in the fullness of a passionate formulation of his almost anguished questions about art and man, nourished in the depths of that mythology that he continues exerting with the life force of the creator.

It would be with the stimulus in the elaboration of the 30 square meters ceramic mural in low relief made for the Ateneo de Valencia in 1981 when Oswaldo Vigas gradually accentuated his interest and decided to apply towards sculptural production, the classical techniques of bronze casting and to take the risk to transfer into sculptures of small and large format, the different forms present in his paintings. Simultaneously with the execution of painting, ceramics, tapestry, jewelry, engraving, Vigas also developed sculpting. The obliteration of reference elements of the forms that burst openly into a range of anthropomorphism; archaic goddesses, guardians and family groups, collect in a syncretic manner and emerge in the unmistakable style of the artist. Example of this are his sculptures: Alma Mater, Joropera, Pareja real, Cortador de Cabeza, Guardián, Centaura, Matadora. In those sculptures, Oswaldo Vigas gradually materializes the form, keeping the excitement of hand work through the textures, the pátinas and the thickness of the volumes, and introduces more and more the sculptural mass in the space with wider amplitude. This is the case with the works transferred to a large scale like: Gran Centura, Gran Posante, Divinidad Lunar, which clearly show Oswaldo Vigas’ original style of maturity.

Elida Salazar