Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe Art

Sheroanawë Hakihiiwë (1971) No Ohiri Pre Ai (No Tenian Comida), 2013 Watercolor on handmade paper, 50 x 67 cm, signed in the bottom left Comes with certificate of authenticity. Born in a small Yanomami Indigenous community in the Venezuelan Amazon, Hakihiiwe began making paper from natural fibres in the 1990s, a skill he learned by studying with the Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata. The artist’s work now consists primarily of drawings and paintings on handmade paper. He draws from his ancestral knowledge of the signs and symbols of Yanomami culture, and their decorative application in basketry and body painting for ritual ceremonies. His work forms a rapidly growing visual lexicon, or library, of Yanomami visual culture. Hakihiiwe’s drawings and paintings reveal his beliefs, rites and traditions as well as his close relationship to the natural world. Hakihiiwe was selected for The Milk of Dreams, the main exhibition at the LIX Venice Biennale in 2022, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Other recent group shows that the artist has participated in include: Siamo Foresta, Triennale di Milano, Italy (2023); Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros...