Gabriel Fuentes Brings Surreal Hats to El Viento

A hat is rarely just a hat in Gabriel Fuentes’ drawings. In his hands, the brim becomes a rooftop, the crown a forest, and the whole thing a container for everything a person carries through life.

The Mérida-based artist opens his latest exhibition, “La Vida en un Sombrero” (“Life in a Hat”), at 8 p.m. Saturday at El Viento, the listening bar tucked inside Ánima restaurant on the trendy Calle 47 gastronomic corridor. The show is part of Fuentes’ ongoing series, “The Hats,” a body of work built on a single premise: an everyday object can hold an entire universe.

In pencil and charcoal, Fuentes draws portraits in profile or three-quarter view, each topped with a wide-brimmed hat that opens into another world entirely. One piece shows a weathered face beneath a hat that morphs into a colonial-style building facade, complete with balconies, shuttered windows and a figure peering out. Another depicts a woman’s silhouette crowned by a tree stump dotted with woodpeckers, feathers and all.

Fuentes describes the hat as something that stops being a piece of clothing and becomes “an extension of thought, memory, and identity — an intimate territory where memories, dreams, fears, and everything that defines us coexist.” The trees, birds, buildings and other forms that sprout from his subjects’ hats aren’t decoration, he writes, but stand-ins for the private world each person builds over a lifetime.

The show’s location adds its own layer of atmosphere. El Viento operates as a listening bar within Ánima, the farm-to-table restaurant known for open-fire cooking helmed by Kansas City chef Ted Habiger. The bar, done up in green velvet with a curated vinyl collection, bills itself as a space for music and art, making it a fitting backdrop for an exhibition centered on the idea that a single object can hold a whole inner life.

The exhibit sits along the broader stretch of Calle 47, which in recent years has filled with restaurants, bars and galleries drawing both residents and visitors to the historic Centro. Fuentes has shown work locally before, and pieces from “The Hats” series are available for purchase directly through the artist.

More about the artist on Instagram.

If You Go

• What: “La Vida en un Sombrero,” an art opening featuring works from Gabriel Fuentes’ “The Hats” series
• When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1
• Where: El Viento, inside Ánima restaurant, Calle 47 #461, Centro, Mérida, Yuc. 97000
• Regular hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 6-11 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 6-11:45 p.m.; Sunday, 2-9:45 p.m. (closed Monday)
• Phone: 999-960-3666
• Dress: Casual
• Good to know: El Viento is a listening bar within Ánima, known for vinyl-only DJ sets and a cocktail menu; arrive early on weekends, as the space is intimate and tends to fill up