Airy and light in solid cast iron

The inspiration for his beautiful and playful sculptures Marco Cueva finds in all from animated television series for children to baroque.
Today opens his exhibition at the Art Gallery in Hälleforsnäs.

Rosewood, sandalwood and alabaster are some of the materials that Marco Cueva uses for his sculptures.
Lined up on podiums, they give a classic impression in which the forms are coherent and unadorningly simplified.
Some will incite you to feel it with their very velvety surface to the touch.

– I have added color as a continuation of the process, says Marco Cueva – the physically heavy iron appears to lighten and the expression changes when different colors are added.

And certainly, when an intense pink little thing stands and calls for attention in the gallery’s rear I become enticed to go there. At first, I wonder if it’s plastic, but on closer inspection it is a cast iron sculpture that, despite its simplified processing retains the essential.
The thoughts are led to both a children’s tale Babar and Ganesh from the Indian pantheon.

Another work “Flor de fango”, the title comes from an Argentine tango roughly translates “flower growing in mire” is a brittle or perhaps fleeting small sculpture that makes me think of a pink flamingo on thin legs swaying in a wetland.

Many times there is a complex competitive challenge in the sculptures; the vision of something airy and light, expressed through a heavy and solid material.
In another series of works; iron masks made ​​to function as outdoor fountains where water will spring out of their mouths, inspired by famous historical faces. There’s Medusa from the Greek mythology and a characteristic Japanese temple guard with his angry expression.

Cueva lives and works in Stockholm but was born from Honduras. He has, since he finished the studies at the Royal College of Art in 1997, showed around the world, including in New York, Madrid and Nicaragua. On his record there are also several public art commissions.

Next in line after the Art Gallery in Hälleforsnäs is an exhibition in Paris and later on, the sculptures will be displayed in a museum in Honduras.