By Lieska Husband Sosa
February 15 th , 2020

Movement, perception, and optical illusion, are the three concepts connected in Wuilfredo Sotos’s artwork. Rhythmic variations of a Latin America geometric tradition that has always endured in the collective memory but with the imprint of new times. Born in the context where abstract language becomes omnipresent, his references to Jesus Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez mark the imprint of his work under the reinterpretation of line, shape and color.

The theme is not new but the way of interpreting is. The artist, a studious and tireless researcher, tells me about his tastes for Russian Constructivism of the early 20 TH century, the exalted colorful of Gauguin and much closer in time the interaction of color according to Josef Albers; the Kinetic Art of the 50’s with the versatility of Jesus Soto, the vibrancy of Cruz-Diez, the optical illusion of Le Parc and Vasarely or the industrial design of Neal Small in the 70’s. All those sources nourish a work that retakes, reinterprets and makes concepts and legacies of its own.

Wuilfredo Soto’s artwork runs with equal skill between the two or three-dimensionality where the apparent simplicity of lines in some cases, joins a formal minimalism with impeccable assembly. His series rhythmic compositions sometimes accentuated by a polychrome charged with light, are an ode to movement.

Soto is an artist of his time and the use of materials combined with technology, are sources that when used it an ingenious way, result in a coherent body of work based on the premise of study and research. The use of laser and CNC router as cutting tools in soft and rigid materials, allows him to model parts in two and three dimensions with the help of the computer as a working instrument. It is a process of creation with millimeter precision in which the cuts and cavities in wood, MDF, acrylic or expanded PVC, as well as in aluminum or stainless steel, gives shape to the piece that will later be lacquered ‒if necessary‒ and assembled by hand. It is almost a magical way of sculpting the material.

Geometry and mathematics play predominant role In Wuilfredo Soto’s serial structures. His work lies beneath the aesthetic of the scientific and the rationally structured. Both, chromatic interaction with mathematical precision, stimulate the contemplative game of the spectator, who perceives movements, vibrations or deviations in a static body of art.

Infinite creative possibilities are born from the interrelation of these lines arranged on the material’s surface. In some of these pieces, the translucency of the material (Plexiglas or acrylic) adds another way of interpreting or visualizing the experience. For instance, in three-dimensional artworks the artist superimposes acrylic sheets in which he draws with laser, geometrical structures arranged in a specific order and embedded in calibrated acrylic
base, creating volumes with voids toward the interior of the piece that can be observed through of the different layers of the material.

Wuilfredo Soto has been able to look into the vast field of the abstraction with a visual proposal that runs between research and creative process calculated to the millimeter. Noting is left to chance. He is a studious of the movement of each of the elements that make up his work and from the dimension of color, adds chromatic harmony. The viewer then, enjoys picking up the artistic fact from his own interpretation, immersing himself in a playful, colorful and dynamic adventure.

Note: Images at www.wuilfredosoto.com

Media Outlet: Art Miami Magazine

Link: https://artmiamimagazine.com/wuilfredo-soto-and-the-interrelation-in-series-of-lines/