The black wings of the condor are a darkened sky that anticipates dusk. The puma is the eye of the earth. The amaru, the mythical serpent, traces the cycles of life and death that envelop fish, birds, felines, insects, and humans. In the paintings, sculptures, prints, and collages of Josué Sánchez (Huancayo, Peru, 1945), beings and times coincide in worlds unfolded between the iconography of Andean textiles, architecture, and the apus—the sacred mountains.

“The Breath of Time” summons the ancestral wisdoms of the past: dualities in conflict, yet sources of sustenance, fertility, and transcendence. The time of myth becomes a response to contemporary crises—a breath that nurtures reflection on the present moment, its conflicts and violences. This fleeting yet constant exhalation sustains chaos even as it aspires toward order, harmony, and solidarity—an imagination that dreams of recovering the means for continuity and the reconstruction of possible futures.

Josué Sánchez is a Peruvian…