Born in Heredia, Costa Rica in 1954, Jorge Jiménez Martínez began his career as a sculptor in the 1970s and adopted the surname Deredia (short for "de Heredia") as his artistic moniker, one which firmly embraces his birthplace and suggests a sense of rootedness and permanence--all of which are hallmarks of his work. Since the late 1980s, Deredia's career has unfolded in an international context with appearances at the Venice Biennial in 1988, 1993 and 1999, as well as countless exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Trained in Carrara and Florence, Deredia merges aspects of figuration with elements of biomorphic abstraction to create sensuous forms that reveal their relationship with the environment, the forces of gravity, ...