First published: September 2025
A creative force since childhood, Chilean artist Alejandro Ulises Canales Sáenz draws innumerable, coral-like cells, deeper than any conscious decision
At the age of seven, Alejandro Ulises Canales Sáenz
told his parents that he had decided to write the
numbers from zero to a million in a notebook, a
task he managed to complete in a few months. As well
as carrying out extraordinary projects involving numbers,
he displayed great artistic ability, and his parents soon
began to realise that their son stood out from other
children of his age.
2022, 14.5 x 10.5 in. / 37.5 x 27 cm
Born on December 25, 1974, in Lo Prado, an area of
Chile’s capital city, Santiago, Canales has always gone by
his second name “Ulises”. Growing up, he was extremely
passionate – obsessive rather – about football, frequently
watching matches on television and drawing them in
pencil, in astonishingly accurate detail. As a 12-year-old,
he wrote and illustrated a book about space for a school
assignment, but received no praise or recognition as his
teacher did not believe that Ulises could have done it.
By this time, he was experiencing cognitive absences
– sudden, brief lapses of consciousness – during which
he felt as if he were, in his words, “not fully connected
to the present”. The absences began to occur with more
frequency, leading his parents to seek medical advice.
However, none of the doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists
or other specialists could find a reason for the episodes,
and Ulises was put on sedatives.
Detail, 2022
At school, Ulises consistently met all the academic requirements but, because of difficulties caused by the absences and medication, he left formal education after eighth grade when he was 14 years old. He went to work with his father in the family’s small jewellery business where he made some remarkable contributions. For example, the company had once produced a magnetic bracelet that had become well known because it was said to possess positive, therapeutic energies; it was Ulises’s idea to further the design by incorporating two magnetic balls and a compass that turned to indicate certain aspects of the wearer’s health.
2010, 11 x 8.5 in. / 28 x 21.5 cm
By CLAUDIA REYES ALLENDES
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #124.
