In Ernesto Leal's "Grammatical" series, Leal treats the canvas as a literal landscape, manually tracing its subtle ridges and grooves with pencil—sans ruler—to create a mapped representation of its own surface. This approach employs a 1:1 cartographic scale, mirroring the territory it depicts in exact proportion, echoing the absurd precision in Jorge Luis Borges's short story "On Exactitude in Science," where a map engulfs the land it charts.

The series' title, "Grammatical," nods to language's constructive power: it shapes and defines reality, rendering the world inseparable from the words we wield to describe it. In Leal's hands, this equates the canvas's physical plane with its conceptual overlay, blurring surface and depth. Drawing heavily from Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas—that language delineates the limits of our world—the works underscore how aesthetics underpin ethics, and existence hinges on articulation. Yet Leal extends this into a critique of instability: his pieces probe linguistic disruptions caused by censorship and repressive structures, highlighting the "gaps in discourse" that stifle expression.

"Cremación" (2021), executed in acrylic, graphite, and crayon on canvas, exemplifies this. Part of a broader exploration in the series, it joins works like "Sentido de la orientación" (Sense of Orientation, acrylic and graphite on canvas) and a trio of "Lorem Ipsum" pieces at 1:1 scale, which experiment with placeholder text as a metaphor for unformed or suppressed meaning. Other entries, such as "Intensidad," "Object," "Transparencia," and "Vocal" (all graphite on canvas), delve into structural linguistics inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure, using rebound effects to question how words—and by extension, art—construct or unravel identity.

The series also incorporates multimedia elements, including performative videos like "Letter," "El hueco en el discurso" (The Gap in Discourse), and "Attention," which examine self-referential themes across labor, politics, and psychology. A related project, "Mis 25 peores ideas" (My 25 Worst Ideas), comprises 25 photographs on paper, where Leal confronts his creative boundaries by defining what he rejects rather than affirms.