Manuel Neri’s use of color, gesture, and texture communicate the contradictions within his work. I admire his willingness to embrace these contradictions. His opposing ideas prove to be essential in both the execution and the concept of his relief sculpture. In my work, opposing ideas materialize with the use of different incongruous materials.
Neri is renowned for painting on Italian Carrara marble. He drove the Italians to complain that he “had no respect,” Selz 24, because the material was normally treated according to historical convention. Neri found it exciting to add to a naturally beautiful material without inhibition. Albright, 59. I use bronze in a similar way, as a historically significant material that asks for treatment of color. Rather than patina, I use oil paint on the surface of bronze to achieve the color I require for the piece.

Figure 7. Left: Manuel Neri, Escalieta No.2, 1988. Right: Sara Heiderich, Unspoken Plea, 2009.

Texture plays an equally important role as color in Neri’s sculpture. The method in which he cuts away at the figure is a “simultaneous sense of creation and destruction of the human form.” Nieto, 53. He physically creates texture by adding in some areas and gouging away in other areas. The manner in which he attacks the surface of the figure balances the smooth, lovingly modeled areas. When I approach texture in my studio, I let the material command the texture while carefully modeling the form of the pieces. The result is a skin texture that read as both growth and decomposition.

Figure 8. Left: Manuel Neri, Mujer Pegada No. 2, 1986. Right: Sara Heiderich, Come Closer, 2010.

When I look at Manuel Neri’s drawings and paintings I am again drawn to his use of color and texture. Loose marks compose the outline of a general figure. Then he applies color in large swatches on and around the body. Energized mark making is something that I find exciting when I do quick gesture drawings: so much that I carry over the scribbled line quality to more developed drawings. Neri’s rigorous marks are often alongside sensitive contour lines of the edges of the body. I enjoy the resulting figure that holds a vibrant liveliness while remaining an anonymous symbol of humanity.

Figure 9. Left: Manuel Neri, Untitled (Red Figure), 1990. Right: Sara Heiderich, Old Man with Staff, 2008.









Selz, Peter. “Figural Poetry: A Conversation with Manuel Neri,” Sculpture, (October 2006)
Albright, Thomas. “Manuel Neri’s Survivors: Sculpture for the Age of Anxiety,” ARTnews (January 1981)
Nieto, Margarita. “Manuel Neri,” Latin American Art. (Fall 1989)