camilo huinca carves personal stories into sculptural chairs

camilo huinca turns personal memories into sculptural chairs

Chilean artist and designer Camilo Huinca, aka ONLYJOKE, extends his visual language beyond illustration with a collection of sculptures wooden chairs. The series draws on literary figures such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka and the Chilean poet Gonzalo Millán, translating memories of childhood, work, family and rural life into carved wooden chairs that act as narrative devices.

Huinca treats each chair as a narrative structure. Faces emerge from backs, figures inhabit seats and tables, and painted carvings act as emotional traces embedded within the wood. The collection transforms everyday furniture into a series of autobiographical portraits, where personal experiences and literary influences become inseparable from the objects themselves.

Rider on a broken horse chair. Wood and paint. July 2025 | image from @plataforma_visual via @onlyjoke

shaped by poetry and personal mythology

Many pieces in Camilo Huinca’s furniture collection explore formative experiences through symbolic forms. Palma Sucia refers to a line from Gonzalo Millán’s poetry and reflects on the dignity of manual labor, using carved and painted surfaces to evoke worn leather, dried paint, cuts and the physical marks left by work. The fragmented face and weathered body of the chair suggest a portrait shaped by lived experience rather than idealized representation.

Monólogo al origen draws inspiration from Rilke’s observation that childhood is the true homeland of humanity. Four carved faces support the structure of the chair, representing the emotional foundations of early life. Three smile while one appears sad, recognizing childhood as a source of joy and permanent hurt. Above them, a lone figure occupies the seat, symbolizing adulthood resting on a complex landscape of memories.

Confluencia, another one of the Chilean artist plans, turns to place and belonging. Inspired by the summers spent in the province of Chillán, the work incorporates references to local landscapes along with fragments of personal photographs embedded in the chair. The object becomes both furniture and archive, preserving moments that might otherwise remain intangible.

Rider on a broken horse chair. Wood and paint. July 2025 | image from @plataforma_visual via @onlyjoke

furniture as a means of reflection

Throughout the collection, Huinca uses wood as a carrier of memory. Carving marks, uneven contours and hand-painted details keep the manufacturing process visible, giving each piece the character of a personal item.

Other works deal with issues of coming of age and resilience. Describir un Viaje explores acceptance and emotional growth through symbolic figures representing nature, family, absence and continuity. El Diablo, informed by the writings of Kafka, deals with pain and endurance through a composition that includes a flaming figure, a red head and a black horse that stands as an emblem of perseverance in the face of adversity.

Throughout the collection, Huinca treats furniture as a way of preserving experiences. Childhood memories, rural landscapes, work and loss are incorporated into the chairs through carving, painting and symbolic forms.

Palma Sucia, Wood and Paint, Santiago, Chile — July 2025 | image from @plataforma_visual via @onlyjoke