The artist’s attempt to define the
ineffable qualities that quantify humanness often result in the
construction of effigies closely resembling human appearance. How that
artist in question achieves his specific effigy dictates the parameters
of his intent. In the case of Emil Alzamora we are presented with two
recent series: nearly life size ones with a metallic exterior broken up
by striated fissures, like those appearing after an earthquake, titled
‘The Initiates’; and miniature ones that have a molten or melted
appearance, under the rubric of ‘Supernumerary.’ Both series play off
our reasonable expectation that human forms would naturally take an
expressiveness of cerebral repose or narrative energy, yet their
fabrication hints at forces far greater than organic life itself—the
raging furnace inside planets and stars…the dynamo of creation at work.
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THE INITIATES reference an accrual of
presences that are unusual in traditional representational sculpture.
They attain a rigor of specific intention previously absent in
Alzamora’s work. These figures are dramatically suggestive of
adolescence, with wistful or brooding poses—the emotional states of
those who have not yet matured into roles of social responsibility. The
boys (they do all seem overly male) are all sculpted in poses of rest or
contemplation, some with legs outstretched and others with back hunched
and hands gripped together, heads down—tense, as if in deep thought
over some seemingly important matter. It is this changeability that
characterizes the passions and impulses of youth. They do not seem to
cohere as a group, or any organic social construction, but their poses
place them emotionally within a scale of comfort versus discomfort, the
intensity of which they share. We see them sitting as a child does,
unconsciously and lackadaisically taking up space. Knowing they are
meant to be children we do not question how their poses imply a
condition of doubt, because in gypsum or in flesh, they remain vessels
of vulnerability. We long to hear their thoughts. Their cracked mantle
of an exterior makes us think that from within each will emerge a real
person—one we could listen to, even take home with us.
Alzamora’s other current series,
SUPERNUMERARY, explores the relationship between idiosyncrasy and the
superfluous. They confront the notion of universality with its phantom
reflection, of a generic character. These are extra players in a story
for which they were not specifically rendered, except to fill out the
space around the narrative. Each is possessed of, in fact, born out of,
the material that makes up their surrounding environment. Alzamora is
explicitly interested in “manifesting the deathless self,” and he
achieves this with great expressiveness, and in a grand style filled
with Gothic and surreal feeling despite the small scale of the works,
which measure from thirteen down to six inches apiece. Their
countenances speak of the horror of being forced to become mute, lose
limbs, merge with other deformed bodies, and Alzamora puts a mirror to
human suffering. We are made to feel the difficulty and complexity of
their struggle. Yet they stand on a plinth or sit in contemplation and
we are engaged with the possibility of their interior lives. No one is a
true cipher who does not contain meaning. These are monuments to
interiority, and they possess us. Supernumerary they may be, but
superlative they become.
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