Antonio Pichillá’s work is articulated from a deeply situated spirituality, grounded in the Mayan cosmovision and in the living practices of the Tz’utujil people of San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala. In his work, spirituality does not appear as a subject matter; it functions as an active structure that organizes the relationship between body, territory, memory, and time. This notion runs through every material and format he employs – from textiles and painting to stone – shaping a practice in which making and thinking are inseparable.
Within his universe, geometry occupies a central place. Far from functioning as an autonomous formal language or as a universal abstract inheritance, geometry in Pichillá’s work manifests as a symbolic system dense with meaning, heir to ancestral knowledge transmitted through Mayan codices and handwoven textiles. These visual languages do not operate as archives of the past, but as living knowledge that renews itself through repetition, variation, and rhythm.
The artworks gathered in this exhibition place distinct systems of knowledge in tension. By intervening in traditional textiles, painting geometric patterns onto canvas, or binding traditional textiles to geometric paintings, Pichillá activates productive frictions between Indigenous practices and the historical formats of Western art. These operations do not seek to translate one language into another or to establish formal equivalences; rather, they generate a space of negotiation in which both coexist without hierarchy or forced assimilation.
The notion of “intercultural geometry” repositions abstraction from a situated and relational perspective. Against a modern abstraction defined by universality and individual gesture, Pichillá proposes an abstraction built from community ties, family genealogies, and transmitted knowledge – with textile-making, historically sustained by women, at its core.
As a material counterpoint to textiles and paintings, the presence of stones in the exhibition introduces a dimension of contemporary archaeology. By wrapping them in textiles and placing them directly on the floor, Pichillá summons ancient time into the present, connecting the geological temporality of stone with cultural memory. Taken together, the works in this exhibition propose an expanded understanding of geometry as a language of coexistence between worlds, histories, and diverse forms of knowledge – affirming a contemporaneity built from relation and care.
