This Saturday (1st), Guatemalan artist Antonio Pichillá opens Abuela Materna, his first solo exhibition in Spain, presented at both venues of the Galeria Memoria in Madrid. The exhibition delves into central themes in Pichillá’s work and proposes a return to the origins, understood not only as spaces that shape meaning but also as a perspective of collective ancestry, linked to the birth of everything.

In this context, the figure of the maternal grandmother serves as a visual metaphor for the primordial elements: primitive fire, essential for early subsistence; water, associated with Lake Atitlán, where the artist resides – and which, in the Tz’utujil Maya tradition, is deliberately feminine; and earth, from which life emerges and grows, evoking Mother Earth as creator and provider.

Through an immersion in traditional weaving techniques, Pichillá rediscovers the visual codes that form networks of memory, affection, and resistance. During the opening event at the gallery’s venue in the Carabanchel district, his latest book, Ombligo Tierra, will also be launched, followed by a conversation with the artist.

The exhibition will run until 17 May.