In 2021 during the production of his Thesis Exhibition, Gabriel began laying the groundwork for the artistic reprieve that would follow his eminent solo show, which was heavily focused on the collaborative published science produced during his three years at Arizona State University. While seeing the finish line for the scientific project he felt he needed to begin exploring the implications and reflections on the research.

La Piedad is a love letter to the aspects of his subjects that he – and perhaps no one – will ever be able to reconstruct. No matter how much statistical analysis and covariate relationships can be found between extant and extinct hominids, it is unlikely that an equation would be produced to measure the agony of a mother who lost her child. The equations may accurately predict the thickness of the cheeks of an ancient Australopithecus, but will this mode of investigation ever yield a prediction of how grief may have pulled on those cheeks causing strained wrinkles, or the pitch and trajectory of the tears that would glaze them over? It’s unlikely.

Nevertheless, from what we can observe from human and nonhuman behavior, it is beyond question that these beings, very much like us, had hopes, loves, goals, and above all, they suffered. This piece is a work in progress that will explore these ideas of what may never be known about our evolutionary past, scientific epistemology, human impermanence, and the moral consideration of nonhuman animals.