Gabriel Chaile
Gabriel Chaile, Brenda, 2022. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Luca Meneghel
Inspired by his own family’s working traditions, Gabriel Chaile makes large anthropomorphic sculptures of raw clay that refer to the visual imagery of pre-Columbian figures. In his own words: “My work is linked to an anthropological predisposition of understanding our own things. I always took myself as an object of study on a visual level and a lot of things appeared from there. I always took what was closest to me first, and that was working-class life. I saw those images, I saw my mother baking bread all her life in a clay oven and my father, a bricklayer, arriving late, not sleeping, not resting much, working a lot. All situations that I approach formally and visually, are a way to talk about that which doesn’t happen in the mainstream of society and which is there, it has to do with life in places that are not visible.”
Brenda, whose name is a tribute to the artist’s sister, is a large anthropomorphic figure made of adobe. At once a sculpture and an oven, with its simple form and ancestral looks, Brenda activates rituals of communality around fire, bread and togetherness.
Gabriel Chaile, Brenda, 2022. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Bread Baking Ceremony by Gabriel Chaile. Opening of Biennale Gherdëina ∞, 2022. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Gabriel Chaile
Gabriel Chaile, Brenda, 2022. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Luca Meneghel
Inspired by his own family’s working traditions, Gabriel Chaile makes large anthropomorphic sculptures of raw clay that refer to the visual imagery of pre-Columbian figures. In his own words: “My work is linked to an anthropological predisposition of understanding our own things. I always took myself as an object of study on a visual level and a lot of things appeared from there. I always took what was closest to me first, and that was working-class life. I saw those images, I saw my mother baking bread all her life in a clay oven and my father, a bricklayer, arriving late, not sleeping, not resting much, working a lot. All situations that I approach formally and visually, are a way to talk about that which doesn’t happen in the mainstream of society and which is there, it has to do with life in places that are not visible.”
Brenda, whose name is a tribute to the artist’s sister, is a large anthropomorphic figure made of adobe. At once a sculpture and an oven, with its simple form and ancestral looks, Brenda activates rituals of communality around fire, bread and togetherness.
Gabriel Chaile, Brenda, 2022. Commissioned by Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Bread Baking Ceremony by Gabriel Chaile. Opening of Biennale Gherdëina ∞, 2022. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo