Esperanza Alzona

About the Artist

Esperanza Alzona is a sculptor from the Washington, DC area whose work has been widely exhibited regionally and nationally. Working primarily in cast metal and mixed media, her sculptures have received numerous awards in juried exhibitions, and she has received grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Frederick Arts Council. Before taking up sculpture, she danced professionally, was an award-winning independent choreographer, and directed her own contemporary dance company based in Turin, Italy, where she lived and danced for six years. As a visual artist she has worked as a graphic designer and film photographer. As an arts administrator, she was executive director of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra for over six years and operations manager for the Shepherd University School of Music for more than seventeen years. She has been on the faculty of the Mid Maryland Performing Arts Center in Frederick, MD for thirty-four years. Ms. Alzona is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group, the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, American Women Artists Associate Member with Distinction, Maryland Federation of Art, the Frederick Arts Council and the Frederick County Art Association. She is a graduate of Leadership Frederick County, and has served as Director of Performing Arts for the Frederick Arts Council, as a Maryland State Arts Council Dance Advisory Panelist, Secretary of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Panel of the Royal Academy of Dance, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Weinberg Center for the Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Committee in Frederick and the TAWA Dance Company. Ms. Alzona holds a teaching diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance, an associate in arts degree in humanities and social science from Montgomery College, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Washington University and a master’s degree in public communication from American University. A nationally-ranked competitive fencer, she holds a rating in both foil and saber. She has fenced for Team USA at the Pan American Veteran Fencing Championships ten times, earning seventeen medals in individual events.

Artist's Statement

My work in sculpture focuses on representations of concepts and qualities of humanness—the characterization of various emotions, sensations, thought processes, the embodiment of self-identity, and spirituality. Having a background as a professional dancer, choreographer, and competitive athlete, I am used to employing the language of the human body as a means of creative expression, and in sculpture, I often use aspects and parts of the human anatomy to convey ideas in physical form. Working primarily in metal renders a certain weight and material presence that I find particularly engaging, and the physicality and three-dimensional visual aspect that comes from being a dancer are what attract me to this medium. ore representational than figurative, my work explores concepts and ideas sometimes in combination with other materials.