Chico da Silva
Untitled, 1974
Oil on canvas
This vibrant composition by Chico da Silva exemplifies the artist’s singular visionary style, rooted in Amazonian mythologies and enriched by his imaginative cosmology. Created in 1974, the painting bursts with dynamic forms and vivid color contrasts, portraying fantastical creatures in motion—perhaps engaged in ritualistic combat or spiritual transformation.
Da Silva’s hallmark use of bold, rhythmic patterns and organic shapes animates the canvas, suggesting both the abundance of the natural world and the symbolic richness of oral traditions. The work bridges the folkloric and the surreal, evoking ancestral forces and enchanted beings from the rainforest's depths.
Born in the Peruvian Amazon and later active in Brazil, Chico da Silva emerged from a self-taught background to become one of the most important figures associated with Brazilian popular and visionary art. His work gained institutional recognition in the 1960s and 70s and remains a powerful expression of cultural hybridity, ecological consciousness, and the untamed forces of imagination.
Chico da Silva was a visionary Brazilian artist of Indigenous and Peruvian descent, born in the Alto Juruá region of the Amazon and later based in Fortaleza, Brazil. Without formal training, he developed a distinct visual language that fused vibrant colors, mythological motifs, and organic patterns drawn from the flora and fauna of the Amazon.
Da Silva rose to prominence in the 1940s and 50s when the Swiss artist Jean-Pierre Chabloz, then living in Brazil, discovered his work and helped introduce it to the national art scene. Despite his self-taught background, Da Silva's paintings gained institutional acclaim for their imaginative force and symbolic complexity. His compositions often depict fantastical creatures, elemental forces, and ancestral spirits, rendered in luminous palettes and intricate forms.
Celebrated for his ability to transcend the boundaries between popular, Indigenous, and modernist art, Chico da Silva's legacy is increasingly recognized as foundational in discussions around decolonial aesthetics and the repositioning of non-Western cosmologies within contemporary art history. His works are held in major Brazilian collections and continue to inspire new generations of artists and thinkers across the Global South.
