"Many men have expressed their thoughts through philosophy, mathematics, poetry, or literature. Jorge Jiménez Deredia does so through sculpture; the most physical of the arts is transformed into metaphysics.
In Deredia, the transformation of marble and bronze is a metaphor for the eternal process of transmutation of the cosmos: matter taking form, emptiness being filled, shadow becoming light."
Geppe Inserra
Philosopher and Journalist
Jiménez Deredia long understood that a well-grounded work of art is one that takes into account the symbolic vision of the past. For this reason, his sculptures explore the circle or sphere and their relationship to human forms.
THE SPHERE AND THE CIRCLE
FOR JIMÉNEZ DEREDIA
The shape of the circle corresponds to that of the sun and moon as they appear to us on Earth. In Platonic philosophy, the circle is the ultimate and perfect form. It represents eternity, an expression of perfection without beginning or end, without direction.
The sky is a large round dome that shelters us.
Zen Buddhism considers the circle to represent enlightenment and the perfection of humanity in unity with its primordial principle; the symbols of Tao, Yin and Yang, are enclosed in a circle to denote the harmony of the universe.
Cultures around the world have considered the circle a symbol of being. In this context, Deredia sees the circle and the sphere as a perfect symbol and uses it as inspiration for his work, a tribute to his ancestors and the pre-Columbian spheres created by the ancient Boruca Indians, emblems of a civilization established in Costa Rica more than 2,000 years ago.
Deredia first saw the spheres at the age of 9, while visiting the National Museum in San José, and he was deeply impressed. The spheres are not only ancient, magical, and mysterious works of art produced by pre-Columbian civilizations; they are a vision of the world, the expression of an atavistic and ancestral culture.
With the recovery of the spherical element, Deredia confirms his personal vision of an art founded on memory, firstly, his own, populated by memories linked to his place of origin, and secondly, a more distant, deeper memory, which he himself seeks and finds within the sphere.
“Circular and spherical shapes belong to us, they are in our DNA,
Its organic shape reminds us that we come from the stars”
Jiménez Deredia
THE GENESIS
Deredia goes further, and in his sculptural works, he shows that the spherical element transmutes, opens, and grows until it takes on the appearance of a woman, or more precisely, the form that indicates the symbolic representation of a woman. If we follow the passages in the sculptures called Genesis, we understand the Master's message: the sphere, elevated to a symbol of infinite realities, transforms into a human being and thus transfers its own memory into it. Furthermore, through women, human beings generate life, in turn reactivating a cycle of creation.
The great ambition of Genesis is to describe the cosmic process from which we come and of which we bear deep traces; it represents the desire to transform life's long journey into concrete symbols.
THE SEED THAT TRANSFORMS
I fondly recall that, while I was creating a monumental Genesis, the farmers who passed by my house on their way to work would stop and say to me: that sculpture is like a seed that transforms and produces life. They said it with simplicity and depth at the same time because they connected intensely with an image that was not foreign to them. They knew very well that the representation belonged to them, that Genesis was a symbol of an experience embedded in their unconscious.
Jiménez Deredia
TRANSMUTATIVE SYMBOLISM
Jiménez Deredia's artistic and philosophical thought is called Transmutative Symbolism. The sphere and the circle are two universal symbols, ever-present throughout human history. The artist transforms and modifies them through his sculptures.
When symbols adapt to the new historical moment, they are transmuted.
The clearest example was during the Renaissance: the semicircular arch and the column were two symbols of antiquity that were transformed with the creation of the new canons of Renaissance architecture. At the same time, a renewed vision of ancient literature and the visual arts gave rise to an artistic movement that connected antiquity with modernity.
Deredian Genesis is an attempt in which the universal symbol of the sphere finds new vitality, transmuting into a contemporary symbol, capable of connecting profound history with the present.
THE DEREDIAN COSMO-SCULPTURE
“We are a small part of the Whole, with our existence we help the Universe fulfill its destiny.
“We are stardust in transmutation!”
Jiménez Deredia
.jpg)
Deredia goes further, and in his sculptural works, he shows that the spherical element transmutes, opens, and grows until it takes on the appearance of a woman, or more precisely, the form that indicates the symbolic representation of a woman. If we follow the passages in the sculptures called Genesis, we understand the Master's message: the sphere, elevated to a symbol of infinite realities, transforms into a human being and thus transfers its own memory into it. Furthermore, through women, human beings generate life, in turn reactivating a cycle of creation.
The great ambition of Genesis is to describe the cosmic process from which we come and of which we bear deep traces; it represents the desire to transform life's long journey into concrete symbols.
.jpg)
