Antonio Pichillá

Guatemalan artist Antonio Pichillá, an Indigenous artist of Maya Tz’utujil origin, has developed an interest in textile art, particularly in the traditional weaving techniques practiced by his ancestors, reinforcing the memory of his people, especially that of the women in his family. The techniques, patterns, and colors all carry symbolism tied to the spirituality and traditions of his people.

In works such as Nudo [Nó] (2017), the artist joins a traditional textile to a geometric painting on canvas, physically tying the two supports together as if to declare: “here we meet, here we establish correspondences.” Since 2019, this investigation has expanded into irregular formats – trapezoids and offset rectangles – that destabilize the pictorial plane and nod to Hélio Oiticica’s Metaesquemas, though without establishing a direct lineage.