Alfonso Galvez'

Which is why the soft spoken Alfonso Galvez’s work is so impressive” he created his won set of images and forms instead of copying Gabb and Peyrefitte’s trademark organic surrealism. Galvez art emphatically shows there’s more than one way to skin a cat, or carve a niche.

Galvez’s sculpture might utilize the carving technique and scavenged wood as source material with the Titans, but the similarity stops there. Where Gabb and Peyrefitte’s work is tranquil and harmonious –a Zen-like oneness with the universe – Galvez work has a diametrically opposite feel: it is violent, chauvinistic and angst-ridden. Instead of harmony, his work is antagonistic. Instead of mellow and smooth and nurturing his sculpture is agitated and coarse and threatening. His fearless work doesn’t attempt to entice or cajole the viewer into linking it through the use of elegant surfaces or graceful forms, its attitude is, “Like it or lump it, this is what I am!” 

Sculpture, especially carved sculpture, is the most violent and brutal of the various art forms. Its technique requires the use of chainsaw, mallets, chisels, rasps, gouges and awls. Carved work is labor intensive and muscle-aching and sweaty stuff. Galvez’s work cross references the aggressive nature of the technique in the forms he chooses. They are tortuous, fierce and potent as the procedure; one is a refection of the other. Galvez’s outsider vision also parallels his outsider materials. He doesn’t harvest precious hardwood trees like mahogany or zericote for his art, he only uses discarded wood that he finds lying around on his periodic treks through the jungle, like gnarled tree roots that nobody else is interested in. again his art reflects its own marginalized roots. (Pun intended).

Galvez’s sculpture might sound somewhat overbearing, it isn’t. His art’s cynical imagery skirts the rut of nihilism through its debased humor. His sculpture isn’t afraid to laugh at its own arrogant intensity. He slyly will transform what first appears to be a macabre image into something silly and humorous. One image twists and turns and snakes around, transforming itself continually through its convoluted journey. Flower petals become phalluses, a fish’s snout becomes a boot sole and a bent up child’s bicycle becomes a couple passionately intertwined in Galvez’s enigmatic and prismatic world.

For ten years, from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, I too, was a sculptor. I retired from the making of art 15 years ago, though viewing Galvez’s show I’ve started thinking about getting into it again. It’s a testament to the force of Galvez’s art that it has roused me do more than write and art… to possibly dive in to the murky depths of creativity once again. Check out this insolent work and see if you get a craving, too. Galvez makes wood sing howl and pierce the soul.