Isabel Soto on interacting with colors, materials and art

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″ title=”” wap_class=”” wap_id=”” column_effect=”bottommove” column_effectanimate=”flipInY”][vc_column_text]

Isabel Soto, Colombian-born, Madrid-based sculptor, is one of those strong, confident and glamorous personalities, able to capture the attention of her audience. She loves going to the events and happenings of the art scene, and recently you would have found her at Arco Madrid (the biggest yearly art fair in Madrid) and “La Casa De Alegria” – a progressive art event during Art Basel week in Miami. But when not out and about, she loves working at her home studio, where she continues to develop her latest sculpture collection called Sensations.

Isabel started her artistic journey at an art academy in Cali, Colombia, where she became passionate about sculpture. “I think, sculpting is my passion because it’s three-dimensional, so you can really touch what you are doing. That makes me feel in control of the work, and I love it!”, she shares. This passion became even stronger during Robert Cunningham’s workshop of sculpting with marble, at his atelier in Los Angeles in the 90’s. The influence of Cunningham led Isabel to explore the biblical Beginning of the world theme, allowing her to get closer to symbolism, which would become an important thread in her work in the years to come. Sublime femininity was another point of reference in her work in the consecutive years, where she was developing the sculpture of human body using stone and bronze. Eventually, she carved out her niche by starting to focus on hand symbolism, in her series of work she named Sensations. “I think that hands are the most important part of the human body, because we use them to communicate, to interact and to create”, explains Isabel.

Asked about her latest work, Isabel tells us about her new approach to expressing colors in her work. She has gradually shifted from using colors to paint her wooden hand sculptures (also decorated in 24 carat gold leaf) to expressing colors in geometric forms, i.e. fabricating a bunch of colorful geometric shapes like little squares, triangles and spheres that make up for an integral, yet external part of the hands artwork. This change has occurred parallel with her starting to use resin- a liquid, transparent, synthetic material, that hardens after a while becoming a massive block and literally ties all the wooden pieces together. “Although resin is quite hazardous to work with and requires careful handling, I like working with this material because in the process of pouring resin, it meets and interacts with wood, creating a subtle movement. Later you can observe it walking around the piece where every angle has a slightly different perspective, so like this the viewer can also interact with the piece and I love that”, shares Isabel. These new resin sculptures are larger in size than her previous hand sculptures (that were close to real size), and are also integrated with light, giving a better visibility to the inner part of the artwork.

Lastly, we’ve asked Isabel about her creative process, to this she replied smiling: “I see my process as playing with different shapes, colors & materials. When you start your work, it becomes like an extension of you, and your creativity gets improved every day, so you just have to follow your sense”. Throughout our conversation it became clear that the interaction of the inner world of sensations with the physical world, and especially how these sublime sensations find expression in the tangible reality through colors and symbols, is what motivates Isabel’s artistic expression. Beyond that, the interaction is the goal of the sculptor when showing the work to her audience: “It’s nice when people get a reaction from looking at the piece and talk about the sensations they got from it”.

[/vc_column_text][vc_images_carousel images=”1509,1510,1511,1512,1513″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” mode=”vertical” speed=”5000″ slides_per_view=”1″ autoplay=”yes” hide_pagination_control=”” hide_prev_next_buttons=”” partial_view=”” wrap=”yes” img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ title=”” wap_class=”” wap_id=”” column_effect=”bottommove” column_effectanimate=”flipInY”][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]