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A skin of orange quills and graphite leads sharpens every millimeter of the vamp, collar, and toe of a work boot. Stripped of its essential protective quality, the object forsakes the pliability of leather to transform into a bristling, almost zoological organism whose physical proximity poses an immediate threat. There is no conceivable foot that could slip into it without tearing, nor a hand that could lace it without feeling the prick of hundreds of sharpened tips.

Alexander Chaves operates through a linguistic and material irony deeply rooted in Costa Rican vernacular: the «burro», a colloquial term denoting a sturdy work boot, splits here between the utilitarian weight of manual labor and the visual violence of an armored shell. The surface is built on a repetitive, tight pattern. Each conical segment of wood reveals the clean cut of a sharpener, culminating in a dark apex that multiplies shadows deep within the lattice, endowing the volume with a vibrant texture that seems to swell or breathe depending on how the light strikes it.

Two dark laces spill slackly to the sides, resting inert on the white ground. That single detail, the only remnant of flexibility in an otherwise rigid and hostile piece, anchors the silhouette to the immediate memory of ordinary footwear. The tension of the work resides in that exact confrontation between soft and sharp. Stationery or drawing tools, commonly linked to the smoothness of paper, mutate into a defensive armor that suspends all possibility of motion.

Isolated against the gallery white, the piece assumes the presence of a perilous relic or fossil. By neutralizing the shoe's function and saturating its epidermis with tactile warnings, Chaves converts the walker's daily implement into a silent paradox, where the effort of the stride is foreclosed by the sheer defense of its own casing.