SAO PAULO.- Birth is never an inaugural moment – that spark that triggers the first breath – dissociating oneself from the womb to come into the light (sometimes darkness) of day. It is a journey, a reinvention. Perhaps that is why Nascimento was the title, chosen by Antonio Obá, to welcome these works. They bear the mark of self-reference, with an emphasis on human experiences, which characterizes his work and seek to synthesize his admiration for life and the things of the world.
The artist recognizes, however, that crossing it requires bravery. Thus, he begins in the company of Ogum, the lord of all war, and Iansã, the lady of movement, represented on a path lined with snake plant and variegated snake plant. Once this portal is crossed, objects appear that are made from materials that recur in his poetics: cowrie shells, which symbolize exchange and a system of divination; the head, which in the Candomblé tradition represents the choice of human beings; and nails, which symbolize defense or protection. These demarcate his confrontations for political and spiritual territoriality.
In the role of a warrior, in Encantado, the artist activates the keys to the same framework of symbolic forces present in his career and returns to performative works, which had been interrupted since 2017. In the plot, a man enters almost untouched nature and is transformed by contact with the risks and beauty it offers. He carries a cross-shaped staff, the crossroads that evoke his origins. His interventions in nature continue in the installation Ka’a Pora, a Tupi-Guarani expression that refers to Caipora, protector of forests in the mythology of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil, and to the Caipira, inhabitant of the woods. It is important to note that Antonio himself is a man from the Cerrado biome in midwestern Brazilian.
Antonio wastes nothing that flourishes in his path: flowers, birds, trees, skilled hands capable of energetic shielding. The artist’s hands decolonize the twenty-two arcana of the Tarot of Marseille. The “Fool” of the original deck is now an Exu elegantly balanced at the crossroads. Obá transforms archetypes into magic.
There is also dawn, dusk, the presence and teachings of his grandmother. Everything is swept away by the color palette, sometimes vigorous in blacks and reds, sometimes gentle in the colors of nature. These are simple scenes, shadows, a way of caring for his loved ones, for simplicity, for his gestures. The paintings evoke a sweep of everyday life. In all of them, the sinuosity of the lines seems to want to highlight the passing of days, hours, times. In his Sonambúlicas series, the artist engages in a nightly ritual to calm his mind and rest his eyes and body after a day of work. He draws freely, allowing the day’s and night’s events to guide his hand, creating intimate and unique pieces that serve as a meditative respite from the demands of the waking world. Birth is also a gesture of hope: surviving wars to be reborn enchanted, taking a firm step to deepen one’s roots, being attentive to cosmogony, memories, life, with the generosity of the great and the curiosity of a child.
And so, conscious of his work, this Birth by Antonio Obá is a duration that articulates the fragility of beginnings – “everything that sprouts” – with the strength of continuities – “everything that prevails.” For him, being born is the very impulse of life. Everything that thrives.
– Denise Camargo
