Ale Prieto

Lives and works in Chile

Artist statement

My work explores minerals and their chemical compounds—coal, lithium, iron, sulfur, nitrogen-as living matter that connects modes of production, economies, and bodies. Through sculpture, I investigate how these substances transform their value and meaning according to their use, moving between the geological, industrial, economic, and biological registers. Lithium, for example, connects the origin of the universe with our contemporary technologies, economies, and bodies: it formed in the first minutes of the Big Bang, acts today as a mood stabilizer in bipolar disorder, and at the same time sustains the development of modern electronics through the batteries that power our devices. This multiplicity of scales—cosmic, chemical, corporeal, technological—is the starting point of my practice: the same element can be rock, remedy, and commodity, and its value is redefined with each transition. I work with sculptural processes that involve the direct manipulation of these materials—smelting, crystallization, oxidation—allowing their physical and chemical properties to actively participate in the final form of the work, rather than simply representing them. In Mineral Body, for example, I work directly with lithium extracted from salt flats to materialize this dual condition of the element—therapeutic and industrial—showing how the same mineral can sustain both the psychic stability of a body and the energy infrastructure of a global economy. My research draws on discussions...

Artwork