The work of the artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe refers to the cosmogony of his culture of origin, that of the Yanomami peoples of the Upper Orinoco in Venezuelan Amazonia. In these paintings, we see three plant species painted on vegetable fibre paper, specifically Lanquarelle cotton paper, mulberry paper and cane stucco paper. Knowledge of the support is significant, as the artist began his career with the Mexican Laura Anderson Barbata as an apprentice in the manufacture of paper with vegetable fibres native to the Amazon jungle. Sheranawe paints the figures of several plants on these vegetable supports: a ceiba tree, a prukunama, and the three sweet fruits of the jungle or wakari. The original titles are in one of the Yanomami languages. As is usual in his work, he uses a very restricted palette of flat colours, often limited to reds and blacks (the tones applied by the Yanomami to bodily ornamentation in community celebrations) in combination with the natural colour of the paper. In all three cases, the support has an equivalent value to what is represented, since the surface left unpainted by the artist occupies a large space in all of them, allowing the paper to become a participant in the composition and exhibit its own natural qualities. Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s brushstrokes are clear and firm, endowing his paintings with elegance and delicacy. His compositions are figurative but remote from western naturalism, and his synthetic purpose gives his images a schematic appearance close to abstraction. For example, the profile of the ceiba in black is a highly successful synthesis of some of the most characteristic features of this tree, such as the thorns on the trunk, its horizontal top and its large tubular roots.

The art of Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe is always the result of work centred on his environment, that of the Yanomami communities of the Amazonian jungle, their traditions, culture and lifestyles, with special attention to their ways of relating to nature. He is inspired by the symbols, ornamental motifs and species that this culture uses in its everyday life: the plants it uses for medicine, magic, food and rituals, or with which it makes dwellings and creates perfumes; the graphic signs used in body painting and basketry, consisting of straight and curved lines, dots and spider’s webs; or the natural and supernatural phenomena present in its everyday mythology.

These three pieces belong to his work Urihi theri, which means “the place of the jungle”. It consists of compositions constructed on the basis of the analysis and knowledge of Yanomami practices of hunting, fishing, sowing and harvesting, inseparable from their forms of spirituality and their mythological tales.

As in the rest of his artistic production, the painter here focuses on and draws inspiration from the Yanomami culture with the aim of preserving memory and making a record of collectively accumulated values and knowledge in a valuable environment under threat from exploitation, deforestation, mining, epidemics and natural disasters. The artist thus manages to transmit this fragile equilibrium and his profound respect for an ecosystem and lifestyle offering an alternative to those imposed by the economic order of globalisation. In Sheroanawe’s works, the vegetation of this region of the Amazon is translated into its most essential and least exotic version, becoming a series of graphic signs rendered with firm outlines and pure colours resonant with a timeless rhythm remote from the linear pressure of time exerted by the western order. Sheroanawe’s art is both a personal interpretation and a vindication of the tradition and identity of his native culture in a bid for mutual understanding between the Amazonian communities and “others”.

Maite Méndez Baiges