This is Chaile’s first bi-chromatic sculpture; a site-specific response crafted alongside local artisans. Chaile uses both black pigmented clay extracted from the soil of Agua Zarca, a local Oaxacan town, using long family traditional practices and white limestone cal mexicana used in traditional practices such as cuisine and white-washing upon the façades of buildings. The new sculpture marks an aesthetic departure from the artist’s signature terra cotta surfaces, in keeping with Meridiano’s mission of inviting artists to make use of the unique site as an opportunity for experimentation.

The height of Chaile’s columnar chimney both receives and interacts with the specificities of Meridiano’s structure and surrounding landscape. As a continuance of ancestral craft, Chaile’s intervention echoes the site as a type of vessel with shared sculptural properties that correspond to the built environment’s form, space, and sacred architecture. Nested within its interior, the vessel emerges from the inner chamber of the gallery toward the sky. Expanding upon the artist’s interest in ritual objects and spaces, the installation emphasises the metaphoric dualities between light and dark, earth and sky, and inner and outer realms.

Situated on the Oaxacan coast in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, Meridiano offers an open framework for long-form, site-specific, and experimental exhibitions of artwork by artists working internationally and across disciplines. Founded on the principles of dialogue and exchange, Meridiano’s contemporary art programming will be realised over two exhibitions per year. Gabriel Chaile: No se me quita lo naco follows the inaugural exhibition by Kimsooja (b. 1957; Korea), which opened in February 2023.