The sculpting of Julio Larraz

The sculpting of Julio Larraz

The dreamlike atmospheres and a surrealist imaginary are no stranger to Julio Larraz, much less for his work. His paintings of fantastic objects arranged in impossible circumstances, the use of bright colors contrasting with ethereal and nominal tapestries, and the exercise of allegories and symbolism in his work, have captivated a remarkable and loyal audience for more than three decades.

However, the political cartoonist has developed in more than one artistic discipline, demonstrating creative versatility following the nature and the language of his message. Provided with a sharp ingenuity and intellectual rigor Larraz has used sculpture as an alternative means of production.

Working from the essence of both everyday and unusual materials, Larraz’s sculptures are punitive comments about politics, identity, sociology, psychoanalysis, and the process of perception, exploring a gallery of objects that collide force and time between the limits of reality and the subconscious.

In each of these sculptures, the human mind is the eloquent protagonist. Reminiscent of movements such as dada works such as ‘The Sovereign’ (2017) seeks to explore the possibilities functions of the symbiosis of everyday objects arranged in unconventional situations.

The object is closer to a statement than to a pictorial style, ironic about its role in society. Even when playing with certain iconoclastic nuances, the object seeks new typologies for the sculptural work by forcing the limits of the aesthetic.

Julio Larraz manufactures specific facilities using materials such as bronze or aluminum but letting the form function as the driving force behind his sculptural compositions, which often recall organic structures, familiar and everyday objects, and even the human anatomy seen from the perception of classical greek sculpture

Symbols allow mediating between the visible and the invisible, the concrete and the abstract. Larraz, is not only one of the most representative artists of the neo-figurative painting panorama of the 20th and 21st century but also a gifted craftsman.

There are many ways to classify people. One of them is to distinguish those who see the landscape from those who transfigure it so that we see it differently. Larraz belongs to the second category, but in a very peculiar sense. He is a storyteller and a materializer of the confines of thought.