“It is very striking the way that artists of Latin America have taken primordial categories, such as earth or fire, and worked their cosmic nature into metaphors for contemporary social struggle. It is not, of course, that these categories are peculiar to Latin America, but they seem to have retained there an emotional and symbolic charge, a capacity of referring to “what really matters”. Often inseparably, too, have been woven together with metaphors of the culture in which the artist is embedded, culture at a popular and/or indigenous level, which the artist knows nourishes his or her own work, own imagination, to a great degree”

— Guy Brett, The Crossing of Innumerable Paths, Essays on Art. Ana Mendieta.

Gabriel Chaile was born in the northern city of Tucuman in 1985.
He is the youngest of5 children and he currently lives and works in Buenos Aires.

Chaile often refers to his indigenous roots through a theory he calls the “geneaolgy ofform” A sort of visual anthropologist, he brings back an identity that has been neglectedby unearthing histories of communities and individuals overshadowed by powerstructures thus giving them visibility and a voice.

Gabriel believes power is defined by shapes and forms something that becomes clear inhis large clay ovens. Named after his sisters, Patricia and Sonia, women animals andoven fuse together. These sculptures as with La Malinche, inspire multiplicity of images.

His work addresses postcolonial national shame prevalent in idigenous culture and indoing so, he is re-shapes ideology and an identity defaced by centuries of domination.All of the indigenous cultures of Argentina have elements of their past which have losttheir original significance, symbols which can no longer be understood even by theirdescendants. Chaile aims to reconstruct and continue the lineage of these culturesthrough his own interpretation, propelling a journey of recomposition and invention.