Alicia Ponzio Talks Sculpture: Commission to Installation
The New Year begins at Haynes Galleries with a new show and art talk from popular sculptress Alicia Ponzio. “Alicia Ponzio Talks Sculpture: Commission to Installation” is an original exhibition that will highlight Ponzio’s creative process from initial idea to completed three-dimensional sculpture. Drawings, plaster sketches, and finished works will all be included in the show along with informative photographs of Ponzio at work creating. The exhibition begins January 9 and runs until January 31 at Haynes Galleries, just outside Nashville. A special dual reception & art talk with Ponzio will take place the evening of January 9, from 6 to 8pm.
For many years now, Alicia Ponzio’s sculptures have drawn the eyes of discerning collectors, art admirers, and other artists. Ponzio favors asymmetry, irregularity, and variety in design: qualities that suggest a human touch. Her bronzes, which can range from miniature to large-scale, multiple figure pieces, mesmerize with their sensuality, tenderness, and intensity. Every element is carefully considered, from the pose of the subject to the finishing patina once a bronze has been cast.
With a multitude of artworks in a variety of sizes and from various points in the creative process, the new exhibition “Alicia Ponzio Talks Sculpture: Commission to Installation” will guide guests through Ponzio’s vision. Graphite drawings like Simone with Her Earrings show how Ponzio contemplates the body, its pose, and our view of it before even reaching for clay. The bend of a knee, the slouch of a shoulder, and the tilt of the head each add meaning to the overall design.
Plaster sculptures, although traditionally a creation on the way to a final bronze sculpture, show how Ponzio works through her design in three dimensions. Space, light, and shadow are now thought through in works like her plaster sketches of Nashville Symphony Music Director, Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero.
In a Still Field, one of Ponzio’s freestanding figural sculptures in the exhibition, reveals the final result of all the work and consideration. From every angle it presents movement and emotion. The surfaces, from the polished granite base to the alternating shine and matte of the body, add to Ponzio’s narrative.
Alicia Ponzio began her artistic career experimenting with various mediums in figurative art but eventually found her voice in sculpture. She completed her professional training at the Florence Academy of Art (FAA) in Florence, Italy in the academy’s Sculpture Program. She returned to the United States 2011 and set up her studio in San Francisco where she continues to create, live and teach. One of her most notable recent commission was a life-size portrait of Nashville Symphony Music Director Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero for the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
