Fantastico Leiro

Francisco Leiro is one of the most representative Spanish sculptors. An exhibition in the National Gallery of Foreign Art in Sofia presented him with about thirty pieces of art from the 80’s till now. Among his main features of the sculptor is his permanent dialogue with the expression tradition of his native Galicia.

Leiro is far from arranging his art in closed subject groups. He creates his sculptures in a way that he separates a series of works close to humor, tragedy or the piece of furniture, and offers the public a new mythology reminding fantastic fauna forms. The sculptor uses the line for defining the different parts of the figure. This is a metaphoric substitution of the tree with an image. He colors the carved wood, and he also processes bronze in the same way: by coloring it and putting in elements covered with patina. The imaginary elements of his work belong to the real world, and everything he can dream of, can be created. “I use everything. My work is a form of living. And when the time comes for me to create sculptures, I find inspiration in the everyday life. Today it is good that the sculpture has a much more democratic way of creation. I can make it tightly connected with drama, with joke, with pleasure, with anything…”

									Dessislava Tomova
								          (Magazin "Az" 08.2003)