In The Propagation of Us (The Most They Are, The Less They Need to Be Repeated), Gabriel Rico imagines the skin of a pig touched at one or multiple points, each contact rippling outward in concentric waves. This metaphor speaks to the expansive, often invisible, impact of human interaction. Rico contains this gesture within a geometric frame, suggesting that all acts of contact, whether physical or emotional, reconfigure the bodies and minds involved, leaving them subtly altered, as if requiring a moment of recalibration.
The series also draws inspiration from the Greek Atomist School, particularly the philosophy of Democritus, who theorized that reality is composed of indivisible units called atoms. In a contemporary parallel, Rico constructs his own visual realities using tiny glass beads—his “atoms”—to build intricate, pixel-like compositions.
This technique is rooted in the traditional beadwork of the Huichol people of northern Jalisco, for whom bead art is both a spiritual and cultural practice, passed down through generations. Each line can take an artisan an entire day to complete, with full pieces often requiring two to three months of dedicated labor.