Horcones

Three structural timbers erected vertically claim the space not as mere supports, but as bodies preserving the living memory of vernacular architecture. The title immediately evokes those rustic pillars that once bore the weight of roofs and verandas, yet here the wood ceases to be an anonymous load-bearing element to become a totemic ensemble. From the density of the posts emerge three faces carved with expressive firmness, each inhabiting a different height and conversing from a temporality that seems suspended.

The material commands every centimeter of the surface. Edgar Zúñiga respects the original scars of the beams: the crevices, the mechanical joints secured with bolts and dowels, the pre-existing geometric cuts, and the remnants of peeling white paint that attest to a past in construction. Upon this utilitarian roughness, the strike of the gouge introduces a poignant sensitivity. The faces are neither polished nor idealized; they emerge from the timber through faceted planes and direct grooves that retain the grain and warm tone of the fresh wood, in visceral contrast with the weathered zones coated in lime.

The arrangement of the three pieces creates a stepped rhythm charged with visual tension. The tallest column, crowned by an austere, severe countenance, commands the vertical with an almost tutelary presence; the intermediate piece offers a serene, distant gaze, while the smallest post shelters an infantile or youthful figure nestled into a hollow of the wood. This spatial hierarchy suggests bonds of lineage, belonging, and generational succession. By transforming the architectural pillar into an effigy, the sculpture merges the structure that provides shelter with the face of those who inhabited it, rendering the timber a testament of endurance and dignity against the inexorable passage of time.