Higo José, originally from the northern region of Ceará, has an emotional connection to the time he spent as a child with the rock art of the Serra da Capivara National Park in Piauí. When he began his artistic journey 10 years ago, all his creative processes took him back to those early experiences.
In fact, Higo started his artistic production by embroidering, a craft he learned from his grandmother.
We, at Galeria Estação, have known him for two years, and since then, we’ve been showcasing his work at art fairs and other public events, both in Brazil and abroad. The reception has been excellent. Now, we are proud to present his first solo exhibition, where all the pieces displayed were created specifically for this occasion.
Welcome, Higo!
Other Writings - Higo José
Brazilian caves contain significant visual records that signal the rituals and beliefs of a prehistoric daily life, through natural pigments extracted from minerals or plants. Loose rock structures found in nature also house these visual representations, or images, mostly composed of geometric shapes or human figures, inhabiting both the inside and outside of various archaeological sites across the country. These communication strategies are considered the first artistic representations and form valuable traces and codes, especially through paintings made at points with acoustic reverberation in cave chambers. In the Northeast, we can highlight the Serra da Capivara National Park (PI) and the Catimbau National Park (PE).
Originally from Ceará, the artist Higo José carries with him certain interests that resonate from his place of origin, such as the manual embroidery techniques he learned from his grandmother during childhood, which have become a fundamental practice in his current work. He has a multidisciplinary background with interests that engage various techniques and codes, using language, the gestural nature of embroidery, and sculpture as important tools in composing a poetic visuality. His recent research explores an iconography of prehistoric paintings and expands into the construction of a vocabulary that incorporates references from the nature of the territories.
The exhibition Paleovisões, presented at the Galeria Estação, brings together a set of works where the line serves as materiality. Displayed in a standard format and supported by linen and net blankets, the group of thirteen embroidered pieces resonates with a repertoire of Paleolithic nature, shaped by the organic quality of the figures, which occupy their space in the composition with greater strength and presence. The research expands through interaction with the traditional ritualistic practices of ayahuasca, in the Aldeia Boa Vista, in the municipality of Jordão, sate of Acre, and extends into the artist’s other interests. The sculptural set refers to utensils and stone artifacts, such as mortars, axes, and grinders, as well as human-shaped structures found in sambaquis—intentional archaeological constructions in the form of small mounds along the Brazilian coastline, more numerous in Santa Catarina, created for various purposes, from housing to cemeteries and rituals, the latter by Indigenous ethnicities.
With a curious and speculative approach to traversing regions of Brazil, the artist explores landscapes, experimenting with new routes that lead to his aesthetic interests. The experience, coexistence, and practice in the specifics of these spaces reaffirm his desire for other places, for the writings that organized new forms of existence and tattooed on the skin of the caves the passage of time, memory, and traces. The contemporary gesture serves as the thread that enables Higo José to weave connections between the writings of one era and a visuality transposed through the ancestral gestural language of embroidery, as well as sculptures that, draped in threads, present various ways of perceiving ritual practices—whether through utilitarian artifacts or those that evoke the sacred, such as votive sculptures.
Bitu Cassundé
