Clemente Ochoa, Manuel

Place: Cascante

Born: 1937

Biography:

Manuel Clemente Ochoa is a Spanish sculptor, painter, engraver, and professor. He was born on February 18, 1937, in Cascante, Navarre. Ochoa studied at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Saragosse and later at the San Jorge school. He obtained the chair of drawing for secondary education in 1962 and for university school in La Laguna (1963-1968) and Barcelona (1968). He has been a professor of visual and plastic expression at the University Central of Barcelona. Initially, his work focused on painting, with an interest in landscape and portrait. Later, his artistic evolution led to figurative sculpture with an expressive style, becoming more schematic and abstract over time. His preferred material is bronze, and the human figure is his fundamental reference. The verticality he imposes on figures is a constant in his work, sometimes simulating that they are weightless in the air. Ochoa has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Academic of Merit from the International Academy of San Marcos (Italy), Mención de Honor from the Association of Art Critics (Miami), Premio Ville de Vence (Antibes), Premio Internacional Arte y Cultura from the Academia of San Marcos (Italy), Atenea de Oro (Turín) or Targa Europa (Roma). His sculptures can be seen in public spaces such as the Señorío de Bertiz, the Campus of the Public University of Navarra, Plaza Tomás Caballero in Pamplona, and other cities like Barcelona, Zaragoza, Castelldefels, Madrid, Andorra, Los Cristianos (Tenerife), Burdeos, Lausana or Dubai. In his hometown, a sculpture dedicated to Fray Pedro Malón de Echaide was placed in 1986, and the Puerta de la amistad in 2011.