Exhibit : Luis Varela-Rico: “Organic Study No. 1”
Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway, Las Vegas, NV
Monday, August 11 – Friday, September 26, 2014

Reception: Friday, August 15, 6-8 pm with artist talk at 6:30 pm  

Luis Varela’s large steel sculpture of the human hand, titled “Organic Study No. 1,” will hang around the Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway near downtown Las Vegas, from August 11 through September 26. A reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, August 15, with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.  

Luis Varela-Rico’s past angular, steel-origami sculptures contrasted the light, flexible and delicate qualities of paper with the strength and hardness of steel. For his exhibit at the Government Center Rotunda, he has further challenged steel’s attributes by creating a large organic form, a hand, and suspending it in air.  

The colossal, expressive, supinated hand is composed of irregular, cut shapes hanging at precise measurements within a large box frame. The sculpture appears and disappears depending on the viewer’s positioning among the metal slices that make up the segmented hand. Using his experience with CAD, machining and welding, the artist has created a piece born of elaborate planning and painstaking attention to detail.  

Varela-Rico, born in Guadalajara, Mexico, has been a Las Vegas resident for over twenty years. He studied art at the College of Southern Nevada and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. His work has been exhibited at Brett Wesley Gallery in the group show “The Male Mind,” and the solo exhibition, “Soar.”

Watch the Clark County TV Ch 4 video ofLuis Varela-Rico's "Organic Study No. 1"on Facebook.