Natalia Mejía Murillo

Bones provide support and protection, but once dried, their calcium structure, perhaps
its purest form, is all that remains. They occupy a unique place between mineral and
organic matter. Humans have been aware of this duality for over a million years, taking
advantage of animals––bones specifically––as raw material. Tools made from animal
bones were instrumental for the development of human consciousness; lunar cycles,
equations and rulers are etched into them, proposing new ways to carry information and
to understand the world.

Arranged in the subterranean Chute Space, “Draft Cadence” gestures to primeval
shelters and traces left in geological time. Made of brass and iron vessels cast from
compressed sand, Mejía’s sculptures rely on earthly elements to realize their
supernatural potential. These forms, which at first appear cold and foreign, are born
from the mortal and animal. Through empirical observation, the artist sources organic
elements at the end of their natural life, denaturing them. Without hair, flesh or skin, they
are reduced to raw material, awaiting their casts and subsequent transformations,
gaining new potential and purpose.

In conversation with the ancient, Mejía’s sculptures propose a parallel reality where
nature and industry have collapsed onto each other. Engaging with humans’ bending
and instrumentalization of the physical world, the artist finds and creates structures that
record memory, time and physical form. Maps, sundials and measuring tools emerge
from these processes, practical devices that redefine the boundary between natural
bodies and handmade objects.