In his essay, professor Enrique Viloria (n. 1950) undertakes a chronological study of the work of Venezuelan sculptor Víctor Valera (n. 1927), without the use of relevant facts or defined phases, but rather based on what he describes as “emotional circumstances.” In a distinctive literary style, Viloria describes the characteristics of the sculptures and dismisses all traces of rationalism at the moment of creation, replacing it instead with emotive nature.
For Viloria, each period of Valera’s artistic proposals has a corresponding analog of an emotional emphasis moment. Because of this, abstraction finds an equivalent in the “conquista de la mismidad” [conquest of self], figuration in the “resolución de la crisis” [resolution of crisis], serial creation in “la emergencia de la sensualidad” [the emergence of sensuality] and expression in “la madurez de la emoción” [maturity of emotion]. Using information from an interview conducted by María Luz Cárdenas four years prior, Viloria recounts the effect and influence on the sculptor as a result of the debate between Alejandro Otero and Miguel Otero Silva (1957, reported in the pages of El Nacional] regarding the validity (or lack thereof) of abstraction versus figuration. This controversy affected his health and emotional state, to such degree that it turned visible in Valera´s personality. The author’s description invites the viewer to go deeply into his creative philosophy, which moves between abstraction and figuration, maintaining as principal characteristics; in this first style, the basic forms, the emptiness as well as the elemental nature of space; while in figuration, the use of serials and barroquismo [baroque style]. Viloria admits to admiring Valera’s work, in his judgment, [Valera] is one of the creators of modern and contemporary sculpture in Venezuela.