Mural painting with natural pigments, 4 x 3m

This mural was created during our latest residency in Mexico City and it was based on our cave paintings photographic archive. Since 2019, we have been documenting cave paintings in the region extending from Peruaçu (MG) to Serra da Capivara(PI), but mainly the graphical and petroglyphs sites in Chapada Diamantina (Bahia, Brazil), the territory where we work and reside. Inspired by this archive we decided for the first time to create a painting with different inscriptions which led us to the shape of a mask. Perhaps the ideia came after roaming around Anahucalli Ribera’s collection and Mexican Anthropology Museum. Using just the natural pigments collected from a cave close to our home, we painted using our fingers and hands, no brushes applied.

Pinturas Rupestres residency program is a project by fundación/op.cit. focused on the practice of mid-career international artists who are invited to live and work in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City. Active since 2023, this program allows each invited artist to work from their own pictorial practices and research, using their usual media, applied directly to the walls of the residency. These walls have been specially prepared using a restoration technique developed for the project, which enables the detachment of the painted layer from each surface in the space. At the end of each artist’s residency, this technique allows the mural work to be preserved in its entirety.

Images courtesy of Fundación op.cit.
Photography by Priscila Victoria