Sculptor Rafael Perez interprets the purpose of an artist as being to help the world by “giving something to the spectator – not something material, but an idea, an eye-opening experience, an inspiration.”
His work is intended to elicit such sensations in spectators by portraying common yet affecting situations and feelings for audiences to react and relate to.
Perez explores these sentiments predominantly through sculpture work of the human form, inviting viewers to see in these bodies and limbs themselves and their own experiences with others.
“few things speak to us as much as the body does”
His work invites consideration of who we are, how we came to be this way, and how we read and interpret ourselves.
Rafael’s work was displayed in his solo exhibition titled “How it Feels” at the Norman Rea Gallery in 2014.
One constant of the exhibition was a concern with expressing a sense of the unfinished. Unfinished sculptures and fractured fragments of limbs, suggesting themselves to have once been a part of a larger work, comprised a majority of the exhibition, inviting spectators to consider how beauty and significance can still be carried in the ‘imperfect’ and incomplete.
Another aspect of the exhibition was relationships, to others and oneself. Hands, limbs, and bodies, suspended in space fundamentally express connection and intimacy, continuing Perez’s artistic purpose, as spectators are enabled to view the pieces from their own experiences, filling in the incomplete sculptures with themselves.
The sculptures of the exhibition were primarily made from stone, concrete and metal, creating the impression of immobile, poised forms. This choice invites viewers to base their reactions entirely on the speechless expressibility of the body, again continuing Perez’s belief in the power of the body as a tool for expression.
Since his time at the Norman Rea, Rafael’s work has been focussing on time, age and movement as subjects, how, despite themselves being constant and inevitable they bring change to and affect humans and their lives.
Work by Rafael’s will again be exhibited at the Norman Rea in celebration of the gallery’s upcoming tenth-year anniversary exhibition “TEN”. The exhibition aims to celebrate ten years of the Norman Rea Gallery by displaying a selection of artists and their works who have formed the Gallery’s history.
The exhibition will run 14th-28th October 2019 in the Norman Rea Gallery with preview night 14th October 7-10pm.
Written by Rosie Day
All photos taken from the "How it Feels" exhibition at the Norman Rea Gallery