Through sculptures and drawings, Sérgio Soarez embarks on a careful investigation of the ontological complexity of the Yoruba people and African diasporic religions in Bahia. Linguistic systems from West Africa, particularly from the Gulf of Guinea, are fused with the exuberance of the Afro-Baroque style of Bahia, produced during the colonial period. This encompasses everything – from ornamental scrolls and spirals to the intense iconography of the African diaspora, often incorporated into cultural exchanges that do not deny the violence inherent in those exchanges.

Objects collected and recontextualized, many found in junkyards, antique fairs, or on the streets, are the focus of his interest. Through assemblage, the artist makes iron objects – keys, knives, drills, pliers, rusted tools or weapons – and wooden objects – plinths, rocaille, simple planks, or ornaments – coexist. These elements align various lives, times, and uses, with their traces marked on their bodies. Thus, Soarez invites us to view these pairings as the congregation of encounters analogous to the miscegenation and syncretism resulting from the African diaspora. The connection between geometric language and Afro-Brazilian religious repertoires acknowledges oracles, orishas, divination systems – such as merindinlogun – and spiritual weapons. By referencing the ofá, a sacred weapon composed of a bow and arrow used by Oshossi – also used by other orishas and Jeje Mahi vodúns as a hunting weapon in the forest – the artist alludes to the values imbued in these instruments, such as precision, focus, wisdom, and strategy.

Soarez’s work facilitates dialogues with key figures and successors of Brazilian Afrofuturism. The totemic and symbolic representation of orishas through sacred geometry resonates with the legacies of Rubem Valentim, Mestre Didi, and José Adário dos Santos – each contributing unique aspects, such as the use of bead necklaces and the prominence of iron materiality in the work of the latter two. Similarities are also evident with the sculptures of Emanoel Araujo, particularly in Soarez’s monochromatic reliefs made of lacquered wood with vibrant colors.