Here is a collection of some of the art that I have done over the years. Enjoy! Renato.
“We are heirs to ancient history and culture”
About Renato Dorfman
Contemporary Sculpture in the Mexican Caribbean
Renato Dorfman is a sculptor who has been able to build a foundation for a body of work that has a highly developed character. Dorfman´s work is a combination of tradition, contemporary style and a certain audacity. Resident of the Mexican Caribbean since 19986, Renato has surpassed not only his own regional boundaries but Mexico´s as well. His work can be found in Mexico City, Ixtapa, Guanajuato, Ciudad Juarez, right on the border and naturally, in Cancún and along the Riviera Maya. On an international level, besides winning the gold medal at the first biennial for the plastic arts in Florence, Italy in 1997, he has had expositions in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain and the U.S. He has also done commissioned work in Switzerland and the Island of Jamaica. Renato is an artist who is not only committed to his creativity and design, but also is responsive to the ecological challenges of his immediate surroundings.
In the artist´s own words
I arrived in Cancun in 1986, when the place was quite pristine. What is now called the Riviera Maya was then only Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen and Tulum. The rest was lonely beaches. It has affected me to see how fast this area has grown. I have been very concerned about it and I express it in my work. I call it Radical Ecology. I perceive, and everyone else can perceive in some of my work, a pain which accompanies these creations. It is this that has had a great impact on some of my current work – the relation between artist and context.
I´m also interested in and influenced by the magical presences which are abundant in this region of the Caribbean. In general I feel moved by mythology which deals with the “other side” of the human spirit.
“The creative paths which have defined my style have been quite varied: I am strongly influenced by the Mexican Caribbean: being surrounded by nature, the jungle and the sea as well as the strong presence of the Mayan culture, who´s creative splendor has flourished for thousands of years. I have developed a certain organic fluidity, combining a variety of elements that blend. As a consequence, abstract forms seem to spring from me, sometimes surrealistic, fantastic, magical.
As a child Renato showed his interest for the arts and at a very early age began showing his rebellious character which has become the motor that has driven him towards his finding his own path and style. When Renato was 13 he passed through a difficult period in his young life because he didn´t feel comfortable following conventional ways…not being able to fit in at school or with the U.S. way of life. He felt alienated in the City of Miami, where his family lived. On August 30th, 1984 Renato was rushed into surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital, with very severe cuts over his legs and back and a severed sciatic nerve. He had lost more that 2 quartz of blood from an accident resulting from a fall through a glass shower door, in the bathroom of his home. Thanks to quick and precise responses from his seven year old brother, his parents and the Paramedics Rescue Team, he arrived alive, although his heart had stopped from such a tremendous loss of blood. After six months of convalescence the Dorfman family moved to Cancún, Mexico, in search of a new life. As a result of the accident Renato has experienced a profound transformation, a gratitude for being alive which, since then, has accompanied him every day of his life. The return to his native country was also vital for him.
In those times Cancún was a virgin paradise and it´s majestic nature cultivated in Renato´s heart a love for the land that would prove to be the central point of his life and his artistic work. When Renato was 15 his uncle, Ariel Ortega, arrived in Cancún. He had left his profession as a philosophy professor at the University of Mexico to become a master ceramist. From the time of his arrival in 1986, which was also the year the family moved to Cancún, Renato entered the ceramics workshop…and never left. At that moment he left behind conventional schooling for the school of earth and fire. As Ariel was a ceramist and not a sculptor, Renato had to develop his own techniques of sculpting in terra cotta. Since then he has been developing his own ways of working. From the moment that he decided to leave school behind, his parents, observing their son´s resolve and total commitment to the arts, decided to give him their total support. Thus, in 1991, Renato and his parents formed a partnership which has proven to this day to be a very successful business endeavor.
Fascinated with the pre-hispanic cultures, since his arrival in Mexico, Renato began investigating the raw materials found in the earth where the Mayans lived. He finally developed a stucco which was similar to the one used by the ancient Mayan carvers. During this time Renato was looking for Domingo Lopez, a young man of Mayan descent who had inherited the basic Mayan techniques of carving in stone and was highly recommended for his skills.
Since he began working with Domingo Renato developed a new technique of carving in high relief with the newly developed stucco. His workshop was converted into a school which ended up producing many sculptors, returning to the Mayans their ancient tradition of sculpting in stucco. Through the years they have helped Renato accomplish his numerous monumental works. Some of them have even broken off and have begun to work independently. Today, there are several groups of sculptors who´s work is based on Renato´s teachings.
Since 1991, Renato and his team of sculptors have created monumental works such as the 30 ft. high mega-sculpture “Ixim”, the 25 ft. long Mayan murals for the Barceló Hotel and the Contemporary Mayan mural which was installed in the Hotel Cresta in Savognin, Switzerland. With these works Renato has been able to create a bridge that unites ancient traditions with contemporary art. For him, it´s necessary to look back at the wisdom of the ancients in order to create a future that is sustained by our roots.
Renato has always tried to convey a message with his work, a message of love for nature and a critique of the consumer culture of our era. He has been a witness to the excessive and unchallenged development of the coast of Quintana Roo and of the deterioration of the eco-systems of the Mexican Caribbean which, in just 30 years, has suffered damages that could be irreversible. All this has profoundly affected Renato and therefore this theme is constantly reflected in his work. Parallel to this and to help him express his sentiments with greater clarity, Renato has been writing poetry since he was 21 years old. He also found a way to give more strength to his poetry through an ancient musical instrument of the Australian aborigines, the “didjeridu”. Currently, he plays his instrument and recites his poetry with a group called “Los Gnomos” and recently he founded “Pulso Terra” (Pulse of the Earth), an organization who´s objective is to help generate, through the arts, positive changes which humanity and the Earth need in order to survive.
The Ecological Evolution of Renato Dorfman
In constant self-evolution as well as in his search for peace and harmony with nature, Renato Dorfman, who in 1993 invented a stone-like material called “Novapiedra” (new stone), has found, in permaculture, a form of expression and lifestyle that today describes his work, work that was exhibited, in November, 2008, as part of the 2nd International Film Festival in Cancun, Mexico.
This restless artist, who has spent more than 20 years creating art in the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has stood out for his magnificent monumental sculptures that light up lobbies and public places in Mexico, Switzerland and the Island of Jamaica. A product of his convictions, he rediscovers the characters and symbols of the Mayan culture as well as create his own artistic language, dedicated to nature and the environment. As a result, Renato´s sculpture exhibit at the Film Festival, which had as it´s theme ecology and the environment, was an opportunity for him to present his idea of sculptured architecture in the form of organic sculptures.
“I exhibited 15 organic sculptured mock ups of homes and buildings, in high fired clay. I wanted to show the functionality of living spaces in complete harmony with nature, a concept which is sustainable and which connects technology and ecology with the environment. In Puerto Morelos, where I live, I´m practicing permaculture, on 2.4 acres of land. I´m designing spaces where one can produce food and energy in complete harmony with nature in order not to contaminate, while at the same time
generate the equilibrium, in our lives, that we need so much. Within this project we construct composts that actually transform into fertile earth within 20 days. This is made possible through an agro-ecological alternative which is the cultivation of earthworms that produce a liquid that, when added to the compost, transforms the residual solids.
Since the beginning of 2008 I have dedicated a lot of my time to permaculture. It has had quite an influence on my artistic expression and I see that it has enormous potential to promote harmony on a worldwide level. This activity has allowed me to become aware of the idea that it´s possible to live alongside nature, in peace with myself, in a simple way. This is seen by how I express myself, nowadays. I have created an Organic Village, as a form of lifestyle. I´ve always been interested in ecology and an important part of my art work shows that but, now I´ve found a way to live according to my convictions and I can offer this new language of art as a proposal for harmony because I believe that we should contribute something to this world that we are consuming. This is my principal worry.”
