A few days ago, the municipality of Tíjola inaugurated the sculpture ‘Purple Abacus for Maite’, commissioned by the town council to the sculptor and painter José Antonio Jiménez Martínez (Safi), in memory of Maite Corral, who was murdered last year by her partner in this municipality.
«I would like to thank both the family and the town council of Tíjola for having placed their trust in me to make this tribute to Maite’s memory a reality. The sculpture we are inaugurating, which I call ‘Purple Abacus for Maite’, is the testimony of our last meeting in the planetarium in Serón, days before her life was taken from her», said the artist.
The work is made up of a series of mobile sculptures arranged like beads on an abacus. Each of the pieces that make up the work (chrysalises, birds, hourglasses, elves, stars, seashells, small towers of Babel; all separated by script-circles) are mobiles that vibrate with the caress of the wind and together they form a cosmogonic ellipse. «All these pieces are for me objects that reflect the order of the world and each of these objects has its complementary in front of it. It is the triumph of order, of Cosmos over Chaos. She, Maite, represents this Cosmos for me: dividing up time, ordering things, taming difficulties, all to improve the lives of her fellow human beings. This is the Maite who lives on in my memory and who has inspired this work that you see», the author acknowledged with emotion.
The author
Born in Serón, Safi often fills the cultural corners and galleries of the Cabo de Gata Natural Park with his socially and politically charged works. Since he began his career in 1984, his work has undergone many changes. The materials Safi chooses for his compositions, however, remain the same. Closely linked to his philosophy, they also speak volumes about the artist. A glance at his work reveals sand, iron, pebbles, old wood, polychrome sheet metal, seeds… The artist defines himself as a rubbish collector and recycler.
In 1984 he began to show his work in Almeria, Ibiza, Granada, Marbella, Tarifa, Valencia, Cordoba, Madrid, Denia, Seville, Barcelona, Brussels (Belgium).
In 1992, he represented Almeria in the Biennial of Young Artists of the Mediterranean, and began his particular relationship with Cabo de Gata. He has held workshops with Soledad Sevilla, Juan Genovés and José Hernández, among others. He has collaborated on several publications; special mention should be made of his work on the design and illustration of the book Poemas de Ibn-al-Sherim (Poems of Ibn-al-Sherim).
«My preferences, motifs, obsessions, may be similar, but my work has matured, the message is more direct, now I dispense more than before with artifice and technically there has been a qualitative leap… The effort of so many years, the experience, has polished my compositions. Previously I developed in my works some mythological themes, whose images inspired me as a child, but I am more interested in talking about the times in which I live: immigrations, powers, geographies, maps, natures, peripheries, desires, dreams, utopias. The raison d’être of my art is to provide answers, to transcend. Because if a work of art is not useful for thinking, what else could it be useful for?
