joseph scissorhands: Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín: Umbilical Cord

Sunday, 27 July 2025

Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín: Umbilical Cord

Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín - Wind, 2024 (detail)

"The cord is a connection to life, and life itself is a knot of problems, metaphorically tied to a day in the Mayan calendar called B'ATZ, which means to knot and unknot." - Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín.

Regular readers will know that I am particularly interested in the work of artists who incorporate the use of thread or stitch into their practice. Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín is an example of yet another artist who does so. Quiacaín is the reason I found myself making a visit to Exmouth Market after many years, and a first visit to Elizabeth Xi Bauer's gallery situated there to catch this exhibition of his work. I first encountered Quiacaín's work last year at the excellent Barbican exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, (here), in which he was represented by a piece incorporating coloured thread draped on a wooden frame entitled Kukulkan, which is also featured here. Quiacaín was born in 1982 in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, where he still lives and works from his studio at Lake Atitlán. He draws inspiration from the ancient culture of his native Tz’utujil heritage found in both urban and rural regions of the country and the postcolonial notion of a homogenous national identity, his work celebrates the diversity of contemporary Tz’utujil life. Quiacaín's work creates a dialogue that sits between Western contemporary art and indigenous craft traditions combining both oil painting and Mayan textile techniques. In this exhition Umbilical Cord, he expands on his explorations of the knot as a metaphor for life and the challenges it poses, and a knot between the past and the present in terms of cultural continuity. As well as thread and paint Quiacaín also works with and creates shaped wooden frame constructions as backdrops for his thread pieces to sit on. He also creates abstract, sculptural picture frame-like hinged wooden wall-mounted or freestanding works. All appear to seek a connection with his Mayan ancestry with titles referencing the abuelas and abuelos (grandmothers and grandfathers) and their inherent wisdom. The textile works here are to my eyes very reminiscent of and similar in spirit to other textile art practitioners such as Sheila Hicks (here), and the wonderful Olga de Amaral (here).