Peter Morales

Born:

1961, Guatemala City, Guatemala Central America

Currently resides :St. Paul, MN

Undergraduate School/year/degree:

Ripon College/1986/ BA Biology

Graduate School/year/degree

University of Minnesota/1993/MA Hispanic Literature and Linguistics

Selected Exhibitions:

2006 Intl. MN Rocks! Stone Carving Symposium, Saint Paul, MN

2001 Stone Carving Symposium, PASP @ Western Sculpture Park Saint Paul, MN

Selected Awards:

2007 FSP/Jerome Fellowship, Franconia Sculpture Park

2007 Arts for All, LEAP Academy

Artist Statement:

My work suggests an interest in the votive aspects of sculpture. In most of my work I depict deities and mythological monsters, often an animus or a life giving spirit is profiled. I did not set out to pursue these themes and have been surprised to find these themes consistently emerging from my work.

As a very young child, (birth to 5 years of age) I lived in Tikal, Guatemala, a Classic Maya city that had been swallowed up by the jungle. It was a haunting place. We were surrounded by lush forest teeming with animals. Very little of the stone sculpture and architectural structures of this very large city had been uncovered. At that time only a handful of people lived there. The work in stone and ceramic was all that remained of the ancients, along with their bones. And yet the place was alive, huge and timeless.
I did not realize how much living in that place could influence me until I began to carve stone. The gestures, ornamentation and particular details exhibited in my work are created as if they belong to an established, classifiable, symbolic system but bear only a very vague connection to Maya symbols as they appear in their art and writing.
Ultimately the general thrust of my sculptures might be an attempt to express what it is like to be a sentient being, living in unmarked time. I like to work the stone so that it has movement and lift, suggesting the tenacity of being through movement.
The work is created intuitively. I don’t always know where it is going but I enjoy trying to figure out where it might be coming from. Most of the work is in stone.