Love of a woman brought artist Arlyn Jiminez (@buloyasanchez) to New Orleans in 2009. Since then, the “magic” of New Orleans and its kinship to Jiminez’s native Dominican Republic have kept the artist engaged in creating sculpture mining the rich culture around him.
“The buildings and the architecture look like the city I’m from, Puerto Plata,” says Jiminez, who instantly recognized the similarities. “We have almost the same history of the Spanish and French, slavery and sugar.”
Jiminez studied at Casa Chavón in Santo Domingo and began working with found metal at age 14, turning discarded remnants, often found on the street and at junkyards, into objects of beauty.
“We had a lot of metal shops that worked with recycled metals and converted them into functional art — tables, lights, bookshelves,” says Jiminez, who often finds direction during the artistic process in the material itself. “It’s the way you work with it and the way it looks.”
Once in New Orleans, Jiminez connected with local metal artists and today shares an Irish Channel workshop with three others. His sculpture ranges from geometric, primary-colored pieces to organically-shaped works with natural finishes. His Minimalist series, created during the pandemic, combines metal rods and colored wooden balls and suggests the 20th-century works of Alexander Calder. His Caribbean Palm Project series is made up of bright yellow, blue or red “palms” inspired by his homeland. Each consists of petal shapes in a propeller-like configuration that captures movement despite being stationary. The more organic works include circular wooden forms with textured surfaces, the largest of which is on display at Ochsner-Baptist.
Jiminez’s current series entitled “Balance and Movement” — like much of his sculpture — explores relationships of balance, movement and direction. The straight lines and sharply changing directions have an airborne quality. They soar like aerodynamic string games. Other works done through the years evoke musical instruments, skyscrapers and abstract figural forms.
Today Jiminez works with plastic, concrete and wood in addition to metal and is interested in doing more large-scale commissions for public display. He also designs and fabricates furniture and does performance art. His works have been exhibited in New York, Florida, Dominican Republic, New Orleans, Telluride, Colorado and Panama City and are owned by both commercial establishments and private owners. One of his large pieces, a multi-directional assemblage of red fan blade-like contours entitled “No Noise” can be seen in the front yard of a Lakefront residence, and the metal bike rack at Lilette is his as well. `
“In the middle of the night, I’m recording ideas in my phone,” he says. “My brain is always thinking about doing something different every day.”