SCULPTOR. MADRID. SPAIN.
My name is Lucas de la Rubia, born in Madrid in 1986. I am currently living and working in this city. In another life, I was a dancer and astronomer; in this one, I am a sculptor.
I like to understand art as something that constantly mutates, like an impulse that sometimes translates into a sculpture or sometimes into a form of dance. Sculpture is a very complete practice for me. It’s very close to the world of music, dance, and poetry. A few years ago, I saw a photo of the sculptor Juan Muñoz in which he was doing the thimblerig game. In the image, the cups of the trick are transparent, so you can see in which cup the ball is hidden. As soon as I saw this image, I related it directly to the meaning of art.
To this day, I still think about that idea, the idea of art as a magic trick. In a way, there is a kind of agreement between the person who does the trick and the ones who experiences it, who allows themselves to be fooled. In the end, everyone wants to have fun… Of course, there is also a more intimate part of art that doesn’t necessarily involve an audience. This autonomous zone, which I enjoy in solitude, has more to do with trance. With the ineffable.
Sculpture has been for me a great desire for a long time. I just didn’t have the physical and mental space to give it a try. I’ve been drawing, painting, photographing and playing music since I was a kid. I studied some years of architecture, then I coursed industrial design. I worked as a designer for several years and after that I committed myself to printmaking and illustration. Sculpture was a very natural consequence from all that.
My pieces are increasingly more related to what surrounds me when I’m working. I can’t really define them but I would say that they are a combination between the idiosyncrasy of the place where I am and a scenario from where to project my deepest concerns. In my recent projects, I have worked with mediums that go beyond sculpture. This has helped me to expand my thinking and understand my practice as something infinite. Nevertheless, no matter what medium I work with, whether it’s canvas, photography, film, performance, etc… I always approach it from a sculptural mindset.
My pieces are conditioned by the materials I am working with at the time. I usually collect objects and materials that arouse my curiosity – sometimes I find them on the street, sometimes I buy them, and other times they simply inhabit the space where I am working. I usually live with these materials and objects for a long time, long enough for them to find the precise moment to become part of a piece.
When I get into bed at night, and just before falling asleep, in that half-awake state is when everything starts to make sense in my head. It’s the moment when I compose the pieces in my mind. Sometimes I have to write it down before falling asleep so that I don’t forget it, but most of the time I manage to fix those images and start working with them in the studio the next morning. Other times it is an object what starts everything. Like a guitar, a chair or an exhaust pipe… Also, I write a lot about my creative process, so putting these ideas into words normally helps me to define what I want to do.
Everything is a motivation force. I am grateful that I am surrounded by people that are constantly creating and thinking. I have friends who I admire a lot and their work is a constant inspiration to me.
My current studio is in the southern part of the city. It’s a perfect place for me. I have enough space to experiment and play with materials, and also to relate myself in space with different formats and sizes of work. I also can play saxophone as loud as I want and have infinite conversations about art with my studio mate.