When a sculpture rises up, it usually marks a pause along the way. The traveler arrives at a site imagined by someone else and breathes the air circulating in dreams. This new space, this midway totem, invites us to feel, observe and recognize the effects and sensations of our own journey. If the gaze wanders to recreate itself in the monumentality, reflections of light and movement of figures, it is only to go back over itself and experience our shakened interior.
With this piece, the artistic work of Angella Holguin, reaches a landing from where it is possible to contemplate the panoramic of creations that she has developed over a decade. The enormous challenge that this work represents is sustained by the trajectory of someone who has given herself body and soul to tame stone and metal. Its proportions are yet another confirmation of the forcefulness with which intelligence, poetry and idealism impose themselves -when there is courage- over the obstacles of a society where utilitarian goods are privileged. Only an artist with great amounts of temper, tenacity and courage could respond like this – with such joy and vivacity – to such a challenge.
The Latin proverb In Vino Veritas, attributed to Plinio el Viejo, discloses here with the power of the oracular voice: wine comes to be a metaphor for consciousness, a symbol of existential drunkenness. The joy of living flows out like a torrent of foam cascading the learnings and memories of the trip. Quarry and steel synthesize the always transforming territory´s identity – oxygenated by the winds of the valley – renewing its colors by communing in harmony with the work of men.
Whoever stops at the foot of this sculpture is invited to taste and evoke the effervescences of transformation. Here grapes, wine and light engage. The landscape transfigures its face and welcomes a symbol that encrypts and unfolds it; the traveler – if he pays attention – will know that this halt is not by chance and that it is life itself that calls one to stop. After resting from the fatigue of the road, it is likely that you will see the horizon with renewed eyes, and perhaps you will walk slowly, trusting in the winds of the future.