It may seem strange to see an artwork bearing phrases like “droga de arte” (“damn art” or “art drug”) or “arte aqui eu mato” (“art—here I kill” or “art—here I woods”). What would lead an artistic object to rebel against its own nature?
This provocation runs through the work of Gervane de Paula, an artist born in Cuiabá, whose production spans sculptures, paintings, and objects that dialogue with the Cerrado and Brazil’s Central-West. His works combine vibrant colors and sun-drenched imagery with denunciations of the violence wrought by land expropriation and by the dynamics of the art market. Disaster coexists with celebration, and humor walks alongside critique. In many pieces, phrases laden with irony challenge us to listen to what objects have to say. “A vida é boa porque tem fim” (“Life is good because it ends”), for instance, reveals a raw and poetic view of existence.
Gervane defines himself as an objetista (object artist). For over 40 years, his practice has continually reinvented itself, prompting art to question itself. His creations often give form to local fauna—jaguars, tuiuiús (jabiru storks), and fantastic beings—that seem to carry secrets of the natural world while also denouncing its devastation.
At the Bienal, the artist presents 56 works produced over 25 years, bringing together paintings, sculptures, and objects that combine social critique, religiosity, humor, and elements of everyday life in Mato Grosso. His materials—wood, papier-mâché, metal, fabric, collage—are shaped into compositions of intense colors and direct forms, populating the exhibition space with hybrid figures, symbolic animals, and incisive messages.
Among the works on view, a highlight is the series built around the phrase “Arte Aqui Eu Mato” (“Art—Here I Kill”), explored as painting, object, and word-image. A striking example is the homonymous 2020 piece: collage and oil on galvanized sheet metal, in which a man carries a jaguar against a vibrant red background decorated with zigzag patterns. The scene evokes conflict, resistance, and ancestry, while the phrase reappears in other pieces, amplifying its political and poetic charge.
Another highlight is the sculpture Tranca Rua (2025), made of wood, leather, soles, and tacks. The piece presents a zoomorphic figure with an elongated body, crossed by a black band and standing on four legs. At its ends, two carved heads with incisive expressions are adorned with rows of tacks that resemble spines or crests, suggesting protection and confrontation. Measuring 1.20 m in length and 70 cm in height, the work brings together symbols of popular culture and elements of ritual force, in a gesture that both guards and challenges.
The panel Em Cuiabrasa a caminho do sol (2025) [In Cuiabrasa on the Way to the Sun], oil on canvas, 3.5 m × 1.65 m, presents a composition that unites graphic and symbolic elements. At the top of the central cross, a stylized sun smiles uneasily—its teeth replaced by the word CUIABRASA, a direct allusion to the extreme heat of the city of Cuiabá. This heat, exacerbated by deforestation in the Cerrado and the Amazon, becomes a symbol of a silent climate crisis. Below the sun, a Black figure holds a crossed arrow and trident before the body. The trident, associated with Exu, represents balance and communication between worlds. With feet planted firmly on the ground and purple flowers in hand, this ancestral figure seems to mediate the struggle between destruction and persistence.
At the base of the work, footprints accompany a poem that reinforces the sensitive and political dimension of the piece:
Walkers / there are no paths.
The path is made / by walking.
I like to watch them paint themselves / with the scarlet / sun-light,
to fly under the blue sky,
To tremble and suddenly / break me.
I suffer the blow / Verse by verse.