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.