Jesús Moroles 2007

Exhibition Dates: September 27th – December 15th, 2007
Location: 730 Tchoupitoulas Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 6th, 6 – 9pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by renowned granite sculptor Jesús Moroles. The exhibition opens September 27th and continues through December 15th at the Arthur Roger Gallery Project, 730 Tchoupitoulas Street. The gallery will host a special artist preview with Mr. Moroles on Thursday, September 27th from 6-8 pm. A reception will also be held on Saturday, October 6th from 6-8 pm, in conjunction with “Art for Art’s Sake.”

Jesús Moroles’ works achieve a poetic resonance of material, form and motif. Working exclusively with granite, a stone of great density, hardness and weight, Moroles combines cutting and polishing techniques with the natural presence of the stone to create works of universal stature. Trained formally in the United States, Moroles also spent a year in the quarries in Pietra Santra, Italy. The sculptor feels granite is “the core and heart of the universe.” Abstract in form, the granite works are a confluence of references and metaphors drawn from the landscape and from human interaction, as well as ancient cultures. Moroles’ sculptures range from very small assemblages to massive installations and environments he calls “sacred spaces.”

Working with the granite medium, Moroles follows the natural inclinations of a particular stone by driving wedges into the raw granite and allowing it to create its own fissure, thus creating objects of pure formal beauty through harmonization. Moroles explains, “My work is a discussion of how man exists in nature and touches nature and uses nature. Each of my pieces has about 50 percent of its surfaces untouched and raw—those are the parts of the stone that were torn. The rest of the work is smoothed and polished. The effect, which I want people to not only look at, but touch, is a harmonious coexistence of the two.”

Moroles refers to the hard stone as if it were alive, saying that when he visits a quarry to select his materials, certain pieces of granite speak to him and beckon him to take them home, though it may be years before they reveal their secrets to the artist. In this manner, Moroles is aligned with many ancient cultures that have attributed great powers—from magical energies to fertility and healing—to stones.

Born in 1950 in the Texas coastal town of Corpus Christi, Moroles now resides in Rockport, Texas. He received his BFA from North Texas State University. In 2007 the artist received the Texas Medal of Arts Award for the Visual Arts. Moroles” major commissions include an environmental installation of fountains and sculptures for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, Alabama; a 22-foot tall, 60-ton sculpture, “Lapstrake”, at the former E.F. Hutton Plaza, New York, located across the street from the Museum of Modem Art; and water sculptures at the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe. His largest public commission is the massive granite earthwork, the Houston Police Officers Memorial. It measures 120 feet by 120 feet with a 22-foot elevation from its lowest to its highest point.

His work is included in numerous prestigious public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; New Orleans Museum of Art; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; and The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans, Louisiana.

For more information please contact the gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit the gallery’s website www.arthurrogergallery.com.