I am them, and then some

My skin not a border

But the surface of water

In a dance with its atmosphere

（inscription on the painting)

Conceived in direct response to the 4,000-year-old Valdivia Cosmogram on view in the exhibition set within a former chapel—Carolina Aguirre’s monumental painting takes the concept of scripture as its conceptual departure point. Anchored by the artist’s own poem on the permeability of selfhood, the work draws a profound parallel between the mark-making origins of early alphabets and the material composition of the human body, framing both language and anatomy as fleeting iterations within a vast, shifting cosmos.

Upon a shared support built from natural, earth-bound pigments, metaphysical inquiry and personal history intertwine: linguistics and symbolism are explored through etched, glyphic inscriptions, while human physical presence manifests as a translucent negative imprint of the artist’s own form. This approach mirrors the dual-axis logic of the ancient Valdivia Cosmogram, bridging cosmological stratification with human transformation. Ultimately, the surrounding surface heightens the sense that both word and body remain perpetually in flux, subject to continuous cycles of inscription, dissolution, and renewal.