Javier Murcia. Photo: Kadambari Gladding/RNZ
Hearing Javier Murcia talk about his process as he breaks down step after step of making a human figure sounds like a class in anatomy. It's close.
In this episode of Here Now, Kadambari Raghukumar chats to the sculptor in his studio at Avalon Studios, Lower Hutt, about everything from Spain to Wellington, traversing his personal and artistic journey.
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Between recording his five-hour-long full-render sessions for his online sculpting workshops, to casting hundreds of his signature figurative pieces, Javier Murcia has been up against time, and that's nothing new. A scan around his studio and it's easy to see how prolific he has been. Javier's best known for figurative sculpture, a testimony to his acute understanding of the human body and movement - from the poses to the proportion.
Murcia was born in Spain and moved to New Zealand to explore work in the film industry, ending up at Weta Studios for several years in an "amazing bubble" as he calls it.
"An amazing bubble because you have the opportunity to work with a very high profile artists, very high quality work, and that pushes you, pushes your skills, I was there. I loved it but I am where I want to be."
Working with the human form though, goes back to an interest from his childhood, growing up surrounded by books on anatomy, thanks to a physiotherapist father. While it could seem figurative sculpting is more relatable the more realistic it is to the human form, that's not the case, Javier says - whether distorted or keeping with reality it's a language unique to the maker.
MaTi - Javier Murcia. Photo: Supplied
"Art has that power which pushes you to look at the world in a complete different way and translate that into a language that is very personal."
With a longheld fascination for how colouration is affected by oxidation, his works present as spectrum of textures, surfaces and colours. Part of Javier's more recent exploration is a newer collection that plays with with enamel, sand, epoxy resin, and a diametric move away from his work with human form. He calls it MaTI - or Matter and Time - they're large, intriguing, circular pieces of illuminated and textured work - outcomes of his curiosity to see where, if pushed, his skills and artistic language can take him.
"There's no way you can't do a figure if you are doing figurative work. And I love it. But sometimes I want to do something else. I was needing to find something else than a sculpture so I could feel my artistic side fulfilled."
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