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Esperanza Alzona

Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

Seeing my work I wish the viewer to find resonance and relevance of “being human” as I explore and express in physical form various facets, abstractions, and iterations centering around the mind-body connection and the human experience.

About the Artist

Esperanza Alzona is a sculptor from the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area whose work has been widely exhibited in the region. An award-winning independent choreographer, Ms. Alzona directed her own contemporary dance company based in Turin, Italy, where she lived and danced for six years. As a visual artist she has worked as a graphic designer and film photographer. As an arts administrator she was executive director of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra for over six years before assuming her current role as operations manager for the Shepherd University School of Music. She is on the faculty of the Mid Maryland Performing Arts Center, and at Shepherd University’s Department of Contemporary Art and Theater she continues much of her studio practice in contemporary sculpture. Ms. Alzona is a graduate of Leadership Frederick County, and has served as Director of Performing Arts for the Frederick Arts Council, as a Maryland State Arts Council Dance Advisory Panelist, Secretary of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Panel of the Royal Academy of Dance, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Weinberg Center for the Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Committee in Frederick and the TAWA Dance Company. Ms. Alzona holds a teaching diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance, an associate in arts degree in humanities and social science from Montgomery College, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Washington University and a master’s degree in public communication from American University. She is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group, the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, American Women Artists, the Frederick Arts Council and the Frederick County Art Association.

Esperanza Alzona website Esperanza Alzona

Artist's Statement

My work in sculpture focuses on representations of concepts and qualities of humanness—the characterization of various universal emotions, sensations, thought processes, the embodiment of self-identity, and manifestations of spirituality. Having a background as a professional dancer, choreographer, and competitive athlete, I am used to employing the language of the human body as a means of creative expression, and in sculpture, I often use aspects and parts of the human anatomy to convey ideas in physical form. Working primarily in metal renders a certain weight and material presence that I find particularly engaging, and the physicality and three-dimensional visual aspect that comes from being a dancer are what attract me to this medium.

Featured Work

Photos

Gazing into the mirror we encounter the face of our own inevitable end, represented by the cast iron skull face. The ticking clock is a reminder of the measured time we have in this life. As it ticks away we must contemplate what we will do with the time we have left beyond the present moment that is reflected in the mirror.
Enclosed in glass on an island of rock, is an empty hand yearning. In an invisible prison of isolation is the unattainable human touch. The granite slab is like a barren desert island upon which the human touch is stranded; barricaded in the glass dome the hand can speak its pain only visually. The work is about the sense of isolation from social distancing.
A pair of ears on decadent walls give the outward appearance of interacting, however, there is a void in the midst, because hearing is not the same as listening. A commentary on the hollowness and deterioration of modern discourse.
One head looking intently and resolutely in two completely opposite directions, representing inner conflict. The head, the governing mechanism of consciousness and how an individual body thinks and physically functions, is trying to cope with opposing views, this dichotomy within itself.
That which is in the heart trapped within, one’s true self imprisoned. This piece addresses the concept of being trapped in a body with which one does not identify and the inability to be the person one wishes to be.
Lamentation is a mixed media sculpture of cast aluminum and fabric, the title and inspiration for this work drawn from Martha Graham’s iconic 1930 modern dance solo that Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times described as “not the sorrow of specific person, time or place but the personification of grief itself.” The work is an abstract and dynamic representation of the human emotion of grief with multiple parts—hands and feet—cast in metal combined with flowing fabric shrouding faceless and profound, visceral pain. The materiality of the metal represents the groundedness and strength of the human spirit, and the fabric the dynamic connective tissue of emotion. The goal is to resonate with viewers in reflection upon the present human condition, relevant to much of what has been happening in our world today with disease, natural disasters, civil unrest, war and mass killings. The creation of this work has been made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Frederick Arts Council.

Videos

  • The Door

    See more information about The Door
    A door suspended in the air with a fist coming through; begs the question of an illusory barrier to be penetrated. Is this door really closed or imagined? Is this an exercise in futility?
    Artina 2022: A Space in Place, juried exhibition presented by the Washington Sculptors Group and Sandy Spring Museum. Juror: Natalie Fulgencio-Turner. Sandy Spring Museum, 17901 Bentley Rd, Sandy Spring, MD. September 21 – November 5, 2022.
    Medium: Cast aluminum, wooden door
    Year: 2022
    Details: 80”h x 36”w x 8”d. 35 lbs.