MASP

Carmézia Emiliano is an Indigenous artist of Macuxi origin, born in the community of Maloca do Japó, in the state of Roraima. In the 1990s, she moved to Boa Vista, the state capital, where she began to paint. Her works feature landscapes, objects of material cultural, and the daily life of her community “My art is a service I provide to the culture of my people, this is my greatest form of happiness,” she explains. Parixara is the term used to designate a ritual of commemoration and appreciation of nature, of homage to hunting and crop. A cassava fermented beverage—pajuaru—is served during the event, while the participants play the kewei, a rattle in the shape of an adorned stick with small sculptures representing animals such as fishes, birds, bees and armadillo. In the painting, the composition is organized into different registers, almost symmetrically, while also expressing movement. Two huts, each one with a hammock, and three trees are positioned on the central axis of the upper part of the canvas. The figures occupy the rest of the pictorial field, divided in three parallel rows, where the walking-dance follows alternated directions.. The repetition of modules of individuals, with the same straw costumes and their instruments-sticks decorated with small animal sculptures in similar positions, provides a visual rhythm to the painting, evoking the marked cadence of the songs and the musical accompaniment of this practice.

— Amanda Carneiro, assistent curator, MASP, 2021

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