Architecture, yoga, sound art & hospitality in Heredia, Costa Rica
The first piece · 01
The energy that destroyed the tree
lives on inside it — as light.
The concept
“Destruction
becomes creation.”
01 — The encounter
In June 2023, driving back from Guanacaste towards Alajuela, David stopped at the side of the road. There lay the fragments of a tree that had been struck by lightning — an event of enormous force, ended, apparently, in debris.
Ojo de Arte did not yet exist. The intention was modest: to build a lamp for his own room. What began that day became the origin of everything.
02 — The form
The fragments preserved the reach and gesture of the tree — open, angular, alive in their movement. The silhouette was left exactly as the lightning and the fall had written it.
The wood was never bleached or painted: its light colour appeared naturally as it was sanded, revealing the veins that would later guide the light.
03 — The interpretation
First came the making; the meaning arrived later, and it arrived complete: the energy that destroyed the tree reappears inside the work, converted into light. The ray was destructive — and at the same time, it made this birth possible. In Trueno, the light is not placed upon the wood. It seems to continue living within it.
04 — The light
The first decision was a refusal: this would not be another trunk lamp with bulbs hanging from it. The light had to live inside the wood — embedded, continuous, following the path the energy itself once travelled.
The LED channel follows the natural veins in a balanced run across the piece, so that the line of light reads as part of the tree's own anatomy.
05 — The making
Embedding light inside found wood required a channel that did not exist — and a tool and method that had to be discovered. That search was the first direct encounter between art and engineering in Ojo de Arte.
Trueno inaugurated the three constants of the practice: light as language, engineering as method, and meaning as the condition of the work. A lamp stopped being an object, and began to formulate a question.
“Can a destructive force also become a creative origin?” The question Trueno left open
06 — Gallery
Select any photograph to view it in full
07 — The origin of everything
Trueno was made before Ojo de Arte had a name. It is the work where the light first became meaning — and the reason a collection exists at all. Its family, the Truenos, remains open: no other piece has yet earned the name.
08 — Technical record
Dimensions and full documentation available upon inquiry.
Acquisition
The first work of Ojo de Arte exists once. Its acquisition begins with a private conversation.
Your inquiry is answered personally, with the work's story, technical documentation and delivery details.
