Manuel Chavajay is his own landscape, he is as much the dream of the landscape of Atitlán as the landscape is a dream of himself. The landscape is immanent, the landscape is inexhaustible and extends itself permanently in the impermanence of its infinite transformation.

From his artistic sensibility, Chavajay deterritorializes the landscape with his gaze and lived history; he abstracts the ancestral pigment of the mountains, the water, the air and the clouds, and converts it into paint and form. Light is indelible by night as well as by day and this is evident in the volumes of his representations. He creates a new territory of perception where we no longer only see the landscape, but the essence of his gaze and his eternal relationship with his surroundings.

K’o q’iij ne t’i’lto’ ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o jaab’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o q’iij
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o muqulii’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o xocomeel’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o mayuul’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o iq’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq saqarii
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq qa q’iij
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq pank’a q’iij
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq nooq aq’a
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o ik’
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj nu kaxri toq k’o k’atiik
Ja juyu’ t’aq’aaj k’o q’iij toq noq’ii k’olii nb’iij

There are days when the mountains and volcanoes cry and speak to us
When it rains, the Mountains and Volcanoes move away
When the air clears, the mountains and volcanoes come closer
It is unreal that the mountains and volcanoes come closer or move away
This happens because the weather is changing
Because the light is changing from moment to moment
Here I leave the time captured in these surfaces

— Manuel Chavajay