The Artist

Elías Cochón Rei showed up into the world in September 1966 in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Pontevedra.

A happy childhood, but with the harshness of being the heir to an older brother’s pranks and the consequences of parents who had learned how to keep a very restless son in line, both physically and intellectually. Seas, winds, waves, and future.

A complicated adolescence, between ignorance of everything that entered a gray, empty world, and the incredible curiosity of a potential artist interested in everything, to whom everything calls, and for whom there is no «don’t do it» as an answer.

Youth perhaps lost, perhaps a source of inspiration… who dares to say that going with the times and letting yourself go isn’t enriching? Leaving the dark world and filling it with light, color, and shapes is magic, the MAGIC that this artist nurtures and little by little forges his path to success. Between forging, iron, fire, masters, and their mastery… the urge for art begins. Immersed in the cruelty of a hostile, hard-working environment like foundry, but with the passion of an enthralling craft that beautifies the blackness of iron.

He grows older, unites and separates, laughs and cries, walks, runs, and stops dead… in short, HE LIVES AND REVIVES. He recovers his personal life and is accompanied by someone who seems to inspire great works and great moments. He experiences FATHERHOOD and unfolds himself to make way for another great moment: his shadow, his son, his love.

He delves deeper into his world, his struggles, his embraces of mysticism, and his loneliness reflected in works tinged with pain. His loved ones die.

The dream life continues, and the frames and sand, silicon, graphite, zirconium, and iron… HARD WORK AND THE NEED TO EXPRESS FEELINGS take over his life and his spaces… a terrestrial life seems to crumble to build a three-dimensional expression of the most intimate, LIVING IRON AND PICTO-SCULPTURE THAT YOU TOUCH WITH YOUR SOUL.

The clearly differentiated stages can be seen in the LIFE AND WORK of this sculptor, painter, creator…

How from a very young age he was soaked in strength, passion, and steel…

An initial stage of creative sponge where knowledge and personal growth determine the path his mind and hands take, a stage that spans until 2003, his first window to the world, his first collective exhibition.

Lessons from the master and mastery of CAMILO OTERO, ashes of creativity that stain the soul of an artist, the heart of a friend, and a common destiny. Truncated and inherited experiences… he sprinkles his heroic art over a work that takes off. SPATIUM CREATIO begins…

In my opinion, from then on, another more visual and miscellaneous phase begins, where research into materials and fields also begins. Sculpture is no longer the only thing in his gallery collection… there are also picto-sculptures, jewelry… group and solo exhibitions that lay the foundation stones for professional and personal success… this period up to 2008 is a masterclass in motivation and creativity.

From 2009 to the present, one could say that our artist is REBORN, IN BODY, SOUL, LIFE, SPACE, DREAMS, BORDERS AND WALLS DISAPPEAR, AND HE EXPERIENCES FATHERHOOD (IN 2011-2012 his son, EKAITZ, is born, the small storm that torments his existence with new sensations and experiences, creating his own space to work and create, which opens in 2014). He institutionalizes his small, great LIDEIRA as his living space, dazzles beyond our borders, AWARDS, MENTIONS, AND DONATIONS, and RE-MAKES a promising talent for visualizing the invisible, three-dimensionalizing for eternity in masterful pieces bits of life and dreams). LIDEIRAS that only exist in his head and that SWEETEN OUR FEELINGS.

Gema Neira