Ariel Elizondo

Born in Brussels to a father from Bilbao and a mother from Navarre, Ariel Elizondo studied Fine Arts in Belgium, influenced from an early age by his mother, a painter. In his youth he moved with his family to Navarre, where he set up a company dedicated to natural stone. His sculpture developed alongside this professional activity, which gave him a deep knowledge of materials and a close relationship with architecture.

Over several years he travelled to quarries in different countries, becoming familiar with the characteristics of the rocks and with the processes of extraction, cutting and finishing. This daily contact with stone became decisive in shaping his artistic language, which also finds a fundamental reference in the tradition of Basque sculpture.

His work centres on the combination of natural stone and steel. The stone, left in its raw state or carved, forms the base from which metal shapes emerge, bending, extending and twisting in space. Worked by hand and cold, the steel introduces movement into the composition, taking on oxidised, polished or coloured surfaces. For the artist, stone holds the passage of time and the memory of the earth, while the curves of the steel give expression to moments of human experience, from intimacy to tension, from impulse to the search for balance.

The creative process often begins in the quarries. Elizondo observes the rock formations, their colours, textures and outlines, allowing the encounter with the material to suggest the path the sculpture will take. Based in San Sebastián, he carries out part of his work outdoors in Tafalla, his mother's home town, and does the assembly and finishing in his studio in Bera de Bidasoa, both in Navarre.

His work has been shown in galleries in Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Portugal, among them Galería Enrique Llamas in Bilbao, Galerie Barsacq in Paris, Galerie l’Œil du Prince in Biarritz, Galerie Giardino in Maastricht and Galeria São Mamede in Lisbon.

His practice extends to large-scale sculpture, with installations in public spaces, gardens and architectural ensembles. Sites that have hosted his works include the Citadel of Pamplona, the port of Sotogrande, Château Gerlach in the Netherlands and the seafront of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in France, where the relationship between material, landscape and architecture takes on a particularly expressive dimension.