new works at HOHMANN, Palm Desert
Bronze, Steel, and Ceramic Sculptures
2/23 - 3/13/2026
HOHMANN, Palm Desert in Collaboration with AUSTIN ART PROJECTS
Definition
syn•the•sis
/sinTHoses/ noun
1. the combination of ideas to form a theory or system.
2. the production of chemical compounds by reaction from simpler materials.
It can refer to the approach to making and realizing the individual works in the show and it can refer to the “synthesis” of two approaches of all the works in the show: metal/clay
Synthesis. Noun. The combination of ideas to form a theory or system. The various works in this exhibition are comprised mainly of two elements, metal and earth. I have a great affection for both processes. Metal is fluid, accommodating and obdurate if properly controlled and cultivated, clay is supple and yielding yet resistant and defiant upon completion. The coming together of these two seemingly distinct bodies of work is itself a synthesis of both material and psychological phenomena. As evidenced by physics, matter is charged with potential energy. Interacting and imbuing it with intention and emotion further charges it. Each work is itself a synthesis of my own experience in thinking and feeling and making.
Press-Release:
There are artists who choose their materials, and there are artists who enter into a long-term relationship with them—occasionally tempestuous, occasionally tender, always consequential. Emil Alzamora belongs emphatically to the latter category. His exhibition Synthesis proposes not merely a thematic umbrella, but a working philosophy: the combination of ideas to form a theory or system; the transformation of simpler materials into something newly charged. It is a definition borrowed from the dictionary and promptly made flesh.
Born in Lima in 1975 and based in New York, Alzamora has long moved fluently between drawing, painting, and sculpture. Yet it is in three dimensions that his psychological acuity finds its most arresting form. The exhibition brings together two distinct yet deeply intertwined bodies of work: vibrantly glazed ceramic busts and commanding large-scale sculptures in bronze and stainless steel. Clay and metal. Earth and alloy. Yielding and obdurate. If that sounds like a study in oppositions, it is—but one resolved not through conflict, rather through orchestration.
Alzamora speaks of metal as fluid and accommodating, provided it is properly controlled. Clay, by contrast, begins supple and forgiving, only to become resistant and defiant once fired. In lesser hands, these materials might remain technical exercises in contrast. In his, they become psychological metaphors. The ceramic busts—often saturated in audacious color—feel intimate, almost diaristic. Their surfaces hum with immediacy; pigment becomes emotion made visible. They draw the viewer close, inviting an encounter with fragility, uncertainty, even hope.
The monumental bronzes and stainless steel works operate differently. They command space. They alter it. Limbs elongate, bodies contort, figures balance precariously or emerge in states of transformation. There is a quiet drama to them, as though the human condition has been slowed down and given weight. Stainless steel catches and fractures light; bronze absorbs it. Both materials, once molten and volatile, are fixed into permanence—an alchemical feat that mirrors the emotional tensions embedded in the forms.
If physics teaches us that matter carries potential energy, Alzamora’s practice insists that intention further charges it. Each sculpture becomes a repository of thought and feeling, a convergence of experience distilled into form. His figures are rarely static; they hover in states of becoming. Beauty and uncertainty coexist. Harmony is always tinged with vulnerability. One senses that these works are less about resolution than about the courage to inhabit ambiguity.
This duality—metal and clay, monumentality and intimacy—forms the core of Synthesis. The exhibition is not simply a presentation of two media; it is a demonstration of how divergent processes can converge into a coherent visual language. The ceramic heads whisper; the bronzes resonate. Together they form a system of inquiry into what it means to be human in a world that is, at once, supple and unyielding.
Alzamora’s work has been exhibited internationally, from the United Nations Building in New York to institutions across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has been the subject of critical discussion in publications ranging from The New York Times to Juxtapoz. Yet accolades feel almost beside the point here. What matters is the encounter: the moment when fired earth and forged metal stand before us and seem—improbably—to breathe.
Synthesis ultimately suggests that opposites are not enemies but collaborators. Clay remembers the touch. Metal remembers the heat. And somewhere between the two, Alzamora constructs a theory of being—one sculpture at a time.
Born in Lima, Peru 1975.
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Florida State University 1998
New York based artist Emil Alzamora is cross disiplinary with a focus in drawing, painting and sculpture. His figurative sculpture practice explores notions of transience, beauty, harmony, uncertainty, and hope. Alzamora has exhibited at institutions including the Samcheok Haslla Museum, South Korea; MOCA Jacksonville, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK; the United Nations Building, New York, NY; and The Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY. His works have been reviewed and discussed in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Boston Metro News, Juxtapoz, ArteFuse, Whitehot Magazine, and Cool Hunting, to name a few.
In his studio practice Alzamora harnesses a wide range of materials and techniques to deliver unexpected interpretations of the sculpted human figure. He often transforms the figure to reveal an emotional or physical situation, or to tell a story. He has a keen interest in the physical properties of the materials he uses. This combined with a hands-on approach allows for the process to reveal and inform at once the aesthetic and the conceptual.