Emil Alzamora’s figural sculptures challenge our conceptions of the classical body. At once beautiful and grotesque, his figures writhe sensually in space, seeming to defy gravity as limbs extend and contort beyond their natural limits. Alzamora works primarily in gypsum and bronze, creating unorthodox forms that range from brobdingnagian and life-size to miniature.
For Emil Alzamora (1975-present), art is not simply a profession; it is a way of life. Because his mother, aunt, and grandmother were prolific painters and sculptors, the aesthetic experience was an everyday part of Alzamora’s childhood. “I grew up around a ceramics studio where [my mother and grandmother] made all the things we ate out of. I was always surrounded by an artistic environment. My family instilled a sense of doing it and knowing you can do it and not questioning whether or not it’s a viable way to make a living.”
Alzamora was born in Peru and moved to Boca Grande, a small island off the coast of Florida, at the age of two where he lived with his mother and older brother, Daniel (Alzamora’s father left when he was just five). Frequent family trips to Spain and various cities along the Mediterranean were essential in shaping Alzamora’s artistry, providing him with the opportunity to see works by Michelangelo, Rodin, and Bernini first-hand. Like these three masters, Alzamora’s deftly executed figures and anatomical detail reveal a classical foundation that is counterbalanced by an expressive freedom. “Michelangelo, Rodin, and Bernini really captured something beyond the materials, something beyond the artificiality. They created a portrait of something that had the capacity to move you in some ways the way another human being can move you. It was a haunting illusion of life that drove me to no end to want to capture it, to find out what can be said in that context.”
Alzamora initiated his formal sculptural at Florida State University and honed his talents at the Polich Art Works in Newburgh, New York, a sculptural foundry where he worked after graduating. In 2001, Alzamora left the foundry to practice art full-time and continues to do so at his current home and studio in Beacon, New York.
(from karinsanders.com)
For Emil Alzamora (1975-present), art is not simply a profession; it is a way of life. Because his mother, aunt, and grandmother were prolific painters and sculptors, the aesthetic experience was an everyday part of Alzamora’s childhood. “I grew up around a ceramics studio where [my mother and grandmother] made all the things we ate out of. I was always surrounded by an artistic environment. My family instilled a sense of doing it and knowing you can do it and not questioning whether or not it’s a viable way to make a living.”
Alzamora was born in Peru and moved to Boca Grande, a small island off the coast of Florida, at the age of two where he lived with his mother and older brother, Daniel (Alzamora’s father left when he was just five). Frequent family trips to Spain and various cities along the Mediterranean were essential in shaping Alzamora’s artistry, providing him with the opportunity to see works by Michelangelo, Rodin, and Bernini first-hand. Like these three masters, Alzamora’s deftly executed figures and anatomical detail reveal a classical foundation that is counterbalanced by an expressive freedom. “Michelangelo, Rodin, and Bernini really captured something beyond the materials, something beyond the artificiality. They created a portrait of something that had the capacity to move you in some ways the way another human being can move you. It was a haunting illusion of life that drove me to no end to want to capture it, to find out what can be said in that context.”
Alzamora initiated his formal sculptural at Florida State University and honed his talents at the Polich Art Works in Newburgh, New York, a sculptural foundry where he worked after graduating. In 2001, Alzamora left the foundry to practice art full-time and continues to do so at his current home and studio in Beacon, New York.
(from karinsanders.com)