Anaconda/ El Guio
Anaconda began as part of my proposal for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Fall Festival: Myths and Legends of Latin America. The sculpture, inspired by the Amazonian anaconda and its symbolic connection to the celestial river, was originally created in paper maché. After it was damaged by severe weather, the project found a new life through the support of the Latino cARTographies program at the University of Houston. Reconstructed in fiberglass, the work was later exhibited at the Children’s Museum of Houston, making me the first artist to present a large-scale installation there, and continues its journey at The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art.
Artist Statement
Chiribiquete, a national park in Colombia, was once a center of pre-Hispanic South American cosmogony. In this mythic geography, the jaguar is king, and the Boa-Anaconda is his sister. According to ancestral stories, the anaconda is not just a creature of the forest, but a celestial being: the Milky Way itself descending to the Earth in the form of a serpent, giving birth to the Amazon River and, with it, to all life.
The stories I grew up with spoke of her immense power. She does not kill with venom or teeth but with the weight of her body and the rhythm of her tail. Her victims are left marked, bruised, changed. You do not see her coming. She is beneath you, above you, beside you. I remember walking through the Amazon, cautious with every step, scanning the trees, swimming without letting my feet touch the riverbed—always aware of her possible presence.
In this sculpture, I have tried to make her presence real. The Anaconda / El GÜIO is not something to look at. It is something to enter. To feel. To remember.
She wraps around us and invites us inside. Her form, scaled and sinuous, becomes a temporary shelter—a place of myth, of memory, and of altered perception. She speaks to our fears, but also to our beginnings. Inside, one hears the echoes of the forest, sees the painted river-creatures of the Amazon, and senses the enveloping mystery of something older than history.
Video created by the Latino Cartographies
2024 — MFAH Fall Festival: Myths and Legends
Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
2024 — Storm Damage
2025 — Reconstruction: Fiberglass Edition
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Supported by the Latino cARTographies program at the University of Houston (CMALS).
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Redesigned for durability in outdoor environments using fiberglass and mixed materials.
- The reconstruction of Anaconda was documented live over several sessions. These videos capture the process in real time, without any editing, showing the physical labor, materials, and transformation of the sculpture.
Watch the full playlist here
The Anaconda — A Traveling Sculpture in Motion
The Anaconda is a walk-in sculpture, about 11 × 9 feet, that visitors can step inside.A Serpent of Origin, Memory, and Movement Artist Statement The Anaconda is a giant sculpture, about 11 × 9 feet, that visitors can step inside. It is shaped like a coiled serpent,...