Artist's incredible sculptures make stones look squidgy
These incredible pictures appear to show the impossible - hard stone turned soft and pliable. The amazing works by Spanish artist José Manuel Castro López feature sculptures made from rock in which the hard materials have seemingly peeled, folded and become squishy. Some rocks have stone drips leaking from them, others have crumpled into wooden holders, while one seems to have 'melted' onto a plate.
José is so skilled at his trade that even other artists ask how he manages to create his deceptive works of art.
José, from A Coruòa, said: 'Ideas arise spontaneously, uncontrollably, stimulated by work. I am a trained stonemason and the fact of the hardness of the stone confronted me.
'This thought may have caused the idea of softening the stones, even in an unconscious way, to leap into my brain. But having an idea is fine, the difficulty then is to develop it.'
But, the big questions is: how does he do it? José meticulously draws plans and models his sculptures before starting. It is then a process of carving the source stone to tease out the otherwise impossible shapes. The marks of his tools are then carefully removed.
José said: 'I never imagined that the viewer did not understand the technical process.
'Nor did I ever seek to conceal anything. Even my colleagues, close to the technique of stone, ask me the same question. 'My sculptures are carved, sculpted. The tool footprint is erased by textures and oxides.I do not use any physical or chemical process or even magic (I have not discovered the "mysteries of the Incas") to soften the stone. I do not speak the stones, they seem to be soft, but they are not.'
'In the same way the actors when they cry seem to be sad, but they are not. Lying and deceit is a resource very employed in art. Behind this technique that, in part, I had to invent to give a 'magic halo' to my works, is drawing and modeling. Only with the technique, nothing is achieved. Ah, and the imagination. It is a miracle to be able to find paths every day in a road, that one work takes you to another; in short, that the imagination sizzles.'
