Al Padrito

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Art · Subcategory: Sculpture · Year: 1999 · Authors: Máximo Riol

This monument pays tribute to the evangelist campaign by Father Claret in the Canaries and is the first incursion into the sculpturing of the human figure that the artist took on on such a monumental scale. Nevertheless, Al Padrito complies fully with the geometrical aesthetic style that Máximo Riol has stuck to for over two decades. With this composition of the claretiano priest we find elements adapted to other works too. The head is a small Romanic arch shape and the crook is reminiscent of the tangent line of one of the palm trees in El Palmeral.

The line defining the body of the sculpture articulates three long rectangular volumes. One section corresponds to the legs, with an outer curve, another straight section superimposed over a described plane, and the shoulders and head symbolized by the arch. These three broken up planes accentuate a bodily contorsion and add dimension to the apparent straight line layout which is not actually the case if we stop to look at it more closely. The work benefits from its transparency by standing out sharply as it does against the sky. In this way, Riol has created a truly neoconstructive religious symbolism. 

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