EL CONUCO DE MARCOS
KOPË KË THEKA
EN LA RUTA DE COVA
Opening: 26 February 2026
27 February to 23 March 2026
The paintings in this exhibition come from three interests that overlapped
over a period of a year and a half, as they brought new ideas into the
process and unfolded across different formats and scales.
El Conuco de Marcos began with visits to a friend’s allotment in the
outskirts of Caracas in 2024. The canvases and small studies made after,
are close to field notes: quick variations on the theme of the steep hillside,
the density of cultivated growth, isolated details of plants, and most
importantly and attempt to reflect in paintings the almost excessive fertility
of a difficult ground that produces generously. Early paintings in this series
were exhibited at ARCO 2025 in Madrid.
En la Ruta de Cova: These paintings stem from and blend with the
previous one rather than forming a separate block. They grew out of
reading La vorágine (The Vortex), the 1923 modernist novel by José
Eustasio Rivera, about the violence of rubber extraction in the Amazon at
the beginning of the 20th Century. The paintings are not specifically about
that, but rather about the second chapter of the book, where language
becomes jungle—baroque, sticky and overwhelming.
Out of that transition come certain paintings that didn ́t stay locked in the
same palette and theme, becoming something else. In Kopë Kë Theka,
painting drove the process naturally, bringing Gili to study the system of
slash-and-burn used in many conucos (kopë kë theka in Yanomami).
Burned ground as both interruption and promise—apparent death and
future fertility; an agricultural gesture that crosses cultures and time. There
is one large landscape painting with this title, installed centrally in the
show, a small piece near it, and a medium-sized painting of a palmtree
titled Phoenix híbrida.
This exhibition will be presented with a text by Santiago Valencia.
The installation shots will become the last element in the book EL HILO,
Jaime Gili ́s new monograph to appear late 2026. EL HILO (The Thread) is
edited by Natalia Valencia Arango and published by This Side Up in a
bilingual edition