Local sculptor Ron Therrio’s ‘Embodiments’ show features otherworldly creations guided by intuition
In Therrio’s practice, mental and physical articulation and the technical challenge of the limitations of materials is where the creativity lies, its intense demand for focus facilitates a meditative process, a means of visioning and accessing alternate realities and deeper truths. His abstract figures evoke other-than-human spirits, talismans, and totems. They prompt reflection on the connections between the disciplined focus of the work and the unseen.
Therrio sees his three striking human-esque wood carvings as the centerpieces for this Saturday’s “Embodiments” show, but avoids defining their fluid presence, preferring the viewers more ethereal interpretations.
“These are more like meditation companions or spirit guides, something you can sit with and ponder, and not be directed back to anything familiar.”
Despite Therrio’s creations’ otherworldly appearance, his painstakingly obsessive approach is rooted in very practical problem solving, due to his background in engineering. While the creatures are made from simple plywood that’s been stacked, glued, shaped, then hand rubbed with oil finish, the effect reaches far beyond mere matter of fact.
“I have an engineering mind, and so I can problem solve but most of my solutions are so far beyond what the average person thinks about, that most people might reject it off hand without thinking it through… A lot of my more successful projects, these bigger ones, I haven’t really thought through. I’ll have a conceptual idea, and then I just start fabricating, going through the steps of the process, and the process kinda leads me along.”
Rather than merely drawing out an initial blueprint, he allows the limitations of the material to guide him into their shape.
“In the process of making it, I have to make choices and go in directions other than what I had initially thought, and in my opinion, that’s where the magic happens, when I am forced to deviate from my original concept.”
Therrio is gracious to engage about his process, but like the most soulful artists, asking him “what it’s all about” is missing the point, citing parts of his subconscious he’s only recently tapped into.
“And I don’t even understand a lot of what this stuff is about when I do it. It just feels right.”
The opening reception for Ron Therrio’s “Embodiments” is this Saturday, September 5 from 4:00-8:00 p.m at Compound YV gallery, located at 55379 Twentynine Palms Highway in Old Town Yucca Valley, next to Snakebite Roadhouse. Free and open to the public.
