Alfonso Huertas "The Labyrinth of Time"

The Labyrinth of Time

Alfonso Huerta’s large-scale multipanel linocut, The Labyrinth of Time, is an intricate meditation on memory, ritual, and the interwoven rhythms of existence. The work unfolds as a vast tapestry of repeating patterns, symbols, and figures that draw the viewer into a visual maze—one that feels both ancient and contemporary.

Across the surface, geometric motifs collide with organic imagery: spirals, circles, and tessellations anchor a network of hands, birds, faces, and mythic fragments. Each panel connects seamlessly to the next, suggesting continuity but never closure, as though the image itself were still in motion. The viewer’s eye is pulled in multiple directions, mirroring the experience of navigating memory, myth, and history all at once.

The choice of chine collé linocut—an art form that demands carving, layering, and precision—reinforces the theme of time as a process of inscription and erasure. The stark contrasts of black and white are punctuated by soft passages of earthy tones from chine colléd Japan Kitakata paper evoking the cycles of day and night, presence and absence. The hand motifs, reaching, grasping, and gesturing, seem to direct attention yet also obscure resolution, keeping the viewer suspended within the labyrinth.

Huerta’s birds, perched or in mid-motion, lend a symbolic dimension: they are messengers between realms, mediators of time and space. Faces emerge and dissolve back into pattern, reminding us that identity too is caught in the endless weaving of culture and memory. The layering of pre-Columbian references, sacred geometry, and contemporary abstraction places the work in dialogue with history while resisting linear narration.

Ultimately, The Labyrinth of Time resists a single point of entry or conclusion. It asks the viewer to wander, to lose themselves, and to recognize that time is not a straight path but an intricate network of repetition, return, and transformation. Huerta’s monumental print is less a picture than an experience—an immersive journey into the cyclical and mysterious nature of existence itself.

The Labyrinth of Time was editioned as a varied edition of nine which means each impression has a different placement of the circular chine colléd circular shapes. Message us for images of all variations. The image measures 48 x 72 inches on sheet of heavy Somerset paper measuring 56 x 80 inches. The publication price is $3,000.