Sean Kelly is delighted to announce De tierra y susurros, an exhibition of new paintings and sculptural reliefs by Hilda Palafox. In this powerful body of work, Palafox explores a metaphoric and visual language rooted in Latin American folklore and ecofeminist thought. With this series she reflects on humanity’s interdependence with the natural world.

Rooted in the human condition, Palafox’s practice addresses themes of identity and resilience through a distinctly feminine lens. Her work unfolds as an inquiry into subjectivity and the body, balancing intimacy with monumentality. Exploring the tension between public grandeur and inner sensitivity, Palafox’s imagery resides between the invisible emotional landscape and its external, formal expression.

I seek to convey certain concerns that travel from a very personal place to a point of universal connection.

(Hilda Palafox)

There is an internal order in her painting, grounded in the solidity of pictorial space, the curvilinear rhythm of her lines, and a palette that creates atmospheres both familiar and otherworldly. Palafox reimagines everyday scenes as meditations on emotion and consciousness, weaving analogies between domestic life and the natural environment. Her figures, often rendered in ambiguous form, become metaphors for collective humanity, transcending gender while anchored in the feminine experience.

Taking its title from the Spanish phrase De tierra y susurros, which translates to Of Soil and Whispers, the exhibition unfolds as telluric poetry, a visual anthology in which the earth itself becomes both subject and voice, its warm, earthen tones evoking a landscape that speaks and sustains. With this body of work, Palafox draws inspiration from Latin American ecofeminist philosophy, which posits a spiritual and historical connection between women and the earth.

I like to think that my practice articulates a dialogue between the monumental legacy of muralism and Mexican modernism as well as the political and poetic potency of contemporary feminist practices.

(Hilda Palafox)

Her new works engage this idea gracefully, intertwining ecological awareness with reflections on colonialism, spirituality, and the body’s relationship to land. The stone relief works, or portales, function as a threshold between worlds where the human body becomes a metaphor for pollination, transformation, and consciousness. Each flower is conceived as a passage between matter and spirit, the seen and unseen.

References to historical legends and oral traditions echo throughout the exhibition, as Palafox addresses the consequences of humankind’s occupation and alteration of the earth. A painting incorporating wire fencing evokes boundaries, both territorial and mental, inviting reflection on the systems that divide and constrain. Her expressive imagery hints at the oppositional yet intertwined structures of authority and domesticity, technology and nature, proposing a renewed attunement with the environment.

For me, the point where two lines meet, lies precisely there: in the conscious decision to pause, to listen, and to pay closer attention.

(Hilda Palafox)

Within this economy of visual resources, I find expressive power... Line functions as both structure and trace, color as breath and accent, and composition as a field of forces where balance coexists with instability.

(Hilda Palafox)

Hilda Palafox (b. 1982) lives and works in Mexico City. Palafox graduated from the Escuela de Diseño del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Her work has been exhibited widely in Mexico, Japan, the United States, Spain, South Korea, and Australia. Her murals can be found in public spaces throughout Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Japan, Belgium, and Spain.