Op Art through the geometry of Sara G. Jaramillo. Temporary Spaces. Image Courtesy Sara G. Jaramillo
Such activity allowed him to penetrate the mysteries of the craft practices of cutting, polishing, burnishing and engraving the metal plate with the images suggested by the iconography of pre-Hispanic cultures. His admiration for these mythological animals of the American Indian communities, seen in his exhibition of the Casa Museo Enrique Grau, led to an interest in the geometry visible in their fabrics, ceramics and domestic utensils.
These sketches during his stage of learning in the arts of fire in Venezuela were the prologue to his initial sculptural rehearsals. Since then he decided that his artistic destiny would be inextricably linked to sculpture. Although one could argue that his present works possess elements of kineticism by their vibrations of light, they are actually located within optical art in geometric compositions of repetitive modules whose light waves oscillate in different directions on a flat surface. The openings at the same time give the sensation of a rhythmic movement where the light and the shadows create luminous flashes that impress the visual versatility that characterizes its constructions.
This Colombian-Venezuelan artist uses superimposed stainless steel sheets in order to create a space volume that is transformed into two dimensional relief of mural character. Low carbon steel gives them a higher resistance to corrosion and makes them more consistent and perennial; In addition, the caliber of the sheets ensures a level of malleability that allows them to be manually operated to obtain the formal character that the artist wants to print. Although they are static pieces, the observer who moves around it is who perceives the different sensations of light and shadow, sometimes nuanced with subtle colors, that the work projects.
In more recent times, Sara G. Jaramillo has explored the aesthetic possibilities of the square, the optical sensations through the ordering of their lines and angles, their transformation and morphology, as well as their rotations, convexities and concavities. From the square develops diamonds with 45 degree turns to achieve the sensation of pyramidal volumes and rhythmic twists in the way to convert their sculptures in three-dimensional format, separated from the wall, also experimenting with the temporal spaces of their geometric figures.
* Writer and cultural investigator, curator of the Queens Museum of Art in New York
