Figurative Artist Ronald Gonzalez is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘War Relics ’. To see Ronald’s body of work, click on any image.

The found objects I work with are from yesterdays. They speak of past events and personal experiences in their embodied histories. Time is a magic that allows past, present, and future to coexist. The artist is a mediator between these temporal worlds. The past is a memory and what I seek and what I find is never the same thing. Objects are of our own making. I am drawn to their degraded rare status that coalesces into poetry. My desire is to make something human from them through intimate forms and an emotional charge that transforms their identities. The head in sculpture is a precedent form in the figurative tradition and a primary vehicle for persona and the imaginary. My concern is for a thing portrayed, a fusing together of animate and inanimate elements captured as human expression born out of this moment. These objects from the past have survived as parts and fragments. They continue to exist and are valued for their meaning and importance as artifacts back from the trenches of souvenirs and war relics.