I began by studying and researching geometric and anthropomorphic forms. Primitivism and African art were my earliest sources of inspiration.

My first works evoked archaeological findings (see "Gerardo de Pablo. La otra cara de la piedra", Litos 1996). The work of the great Spanish sculptors of the pre-Civil War period, and in particular Julio Gonzalez and Pablo Gargallo, also influenced me extensively.

The proximity of the Industrial zones and the activity of the metal recycling companies in Ile de France represented a new impulse in my artistic activity through the usage of iron. Since 2004, I have been salvaging all sorts of materials, as I try to bring together art and reality. This is not the same approach as the Dadaists, and certainly not the same as Marcel Duchamp, with "found objects". They wanted to dissolve art through the display of objects encountered by chance, by twisting them from their intended purpose. I too divert them from their primitive function, but it is not a matter of disaggregating the forms but a construction, not to achieve an interpretation of reality, not to reconstruct reality, but to create a new reality, often with a wink, sometimes ironic, other times symbolic.

This singular art is, to me, an intuitive knowledge, synthesis rather than analysis, inspiration rather than research, subjectivity rather than objectivity. I consider my current work to have a very contemporary character. I do not classify myself in one style or another; my work transports me into a personal universe distinguished, on the one hand, by mystery, symbols, energy, humour... and on the other, by my attitude, opened to constant evolution and change.

I create mainly figurative, personal, unique sculptures, and in recent years I have produced mainly steel sculptures. Steel, as a modelling material, poses difficulties for the creation of figurative works due to its hardness and texture. Despite these and other disadvantages, such as its weight, I have managed to create pieces whose main characteristics are: expressiveness, lightness, humour,
irony.

Gerardo de Pablo, born in 1956, lives and works in Paris.