(b Santiago, 1940). Chilean sculptor. He studied philosophy and art from 1960 to 1964 at the University of Notre Dame, IN, and theology at the Università Gregoriana Pontificia in Rome from 1965 to 1967. In 1968 he continued his studies under the German sculptor Otto Waldemar. He first exhibited his work in Chile in 1970, consistently using the human figure to express injustice, loneliness, helplessness, sorrow and torture, as in Judgement (1978; Valparaíso, Mus. Mun. B.A.). Favouring a directness of expression in his bronzes, for which he used the lost-wax process, he sought to leave visible traces of textures and of the marks made in manipulating the material. He used the nudity of the human body, sometimes lacerated or with exaggerated proportions—the torso is sometimes unduly large in relation to the arms and legs—to emphasize its vulnerability and helplessness, reinforcing this impression by his choice of postures. Whether prone, reclining, seated or standing, the figure is always characterized by the determined way in which the head is held, which completes the expressive effect.

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