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Bench of a Brazilian Indigenous artist - jaguar

Paulo Apodonepá - 2019

animal carved in cedar wood

14,00 cm height x 58,00cm width x 16,00 cm depth

USD 990,00

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Delivery period: 20 to 25 days to any country outside Brazil

The work of art is sent directly from the artist’s studio in Brazil to your home

Product code: 14390

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THE ARTIST

Paulo Apodonepá

“An Indian cast in his unfettered physical body

In every solid, every gas and every liquid

In atoms, words, soul, color

In gesture, in smells, in shadow, in light, in a magnificent sound

In an equidistant point between the Atlantic and the Pacific

From the resplendent yes-object, the Indian will descend

And the things that I know he will say, he will do

I don’t know how to say this explicitly.”

The lyrics by Caetano Veloso, a Brazilian popular music singer, recount the prolific Brazilian indigenous culture. The first people to live in our land include art in their many daily rituals, celebrating myths and underlining the differences between humans, animals, and nature.

The indigenous artist Paulo Apodonepá is from the “Balotiponé” tribe, part of the “Umutina” people. Located in the municipalities Barra do Bugres and Alto do Paraguai, between rivers Paraguai and Bugres, in Mato Grosso, a large state in Brazil’s Midwest, covered almost entirely by the Amazon Forest, the birthplace of his inspiration for his art.

His people glorify both the forest and the fauna diversity, believing that they have three souls and that, when passing, one of their souls reincarnates as an animal. They worship tremendously the regional animals, turning this into something with a deeper meaning: the animals’ artistic representation.

The cedar benches, made with revitalized wood, distinctly from the forest, represent an animal of the regional fauna, one of the richest in the country. The artist crafts a body painting linked to his tribe’s mythological rituals in an artisanal carving process, a technique that takes time for the detailed sculptures.

“These pieces of art tell our people’s story with a purpose. Thus, people get to know up close the biological and cosmological dimension of Brazilian indigenous nature,” says Paulo.

Critical to the local biome and increasingly close to extinction, the main animals portrayed by the artist are species found only in Brazil: the jaguar - in both color variations - the spotted jaguar and the black panther. The Brazilian tapir and armadillo also become sculptures. Apodonepá also represents other tools in his daily life, such as boats and oars.

The artist tells us that his art provides a dignified life to many people in his tribe: “This is how I earn my living, for my family and me. We have many people here in the tribe. Proud and humble, I always craft these pieces with the environment’s protection in mind, working with revitalized wood.”

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works by Paulo Apodonepá

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