Ariel Elizondo

ARIEL ELIZONDO LIZARRAGA ( Brussels, Belgium, 1968).
"Cubisms and grey sandstone", 2023.
Natural grey sandstone and corten steel.
Signed on the base.
Certificate of authenticity of the artist enclosed.
Measurements: 18 x 16 x 17 cm.
Ariel's life has always been in continuous and intimate contact with natural stone, of which he is a true specialist both in its technical aspects and in its application for various professional uses. For many years he visited quarries all over the world and got to know in depth the natural formations of all types of rocks and stones, as well as the extraction, cutting and finishing processes. This rich working experience also gave him a solid knowledge of steel in a wide variety of forms and applications. During these years, his artistic vocation as a sculptor developed in parallel. In his youth he had the opportunity to study and become well acquainted with the schools of contemporary art in Belgium, but on his return to Navarre, his contact with the rich tradition of the Basque school of sculpture (Chillida, Oteiza, Mendiburu, etc.) spurred a methodical and profound investigation into the integration of both elements in a genuine and original way. Stone serves as a fundamental support, as the essence and base of the whole, whether in live rock or carved, and from it emerges steel in stylised and kinetic forms. Thus a vital dialogue takes place between the two elements: the origin and formation of nature in its primary aspect on the one hand, and on the other hand the personal development which in its lyrical or dramatic variants represents the search for an intensely personal path. The steel, always worked by hand and cold, emerges from the living stone in various forms, whether thin or thick, rusted or polished, natural or laminated in colours, and grows wavy or twisted in aesthetic adventures where stone and steel form a visual and suggestive dance to the point of the dreamlike and ineffable. Everything fits and is freely expressed in this choreography of two complementary materials, without excluding the dramatic sentiment, the heroic cry or the difficult balance of the everyday in human existence. It is an art that is not conceptual but conceptualised in vibrant symbolism and full of expressive tension. It is a modern and current art because it sinks its roots in the primary and ancestral to project itself into that uncertain future that sometimes frightens us and always challenges us, an art that with very ethnic elements manages to elevate itself to a universal language.