Cosmic embrace2026 · 150 × 100 cm
Salvador, Bahia2026
Suelen Novais
Body, territory and the cosmopolitics of healing
The cosmic serpent, 2026 — acrylic on canvas, 160 × 160 cm
Artist's statement
I am a self-taught visual artist, a pharmacist graduated from the Federal University of Bahia, and a public health specialist working in Indigenous healthcare in Bahia. Daily, I navigate the frontier between official science and the living pharmacopeia of the Native peoples I work with. From this friction, my painting is born. I reject an exoticising or purely biological gaze upon the forest: the brush, drawing, oil and watercolour operate as tools for cultural and intellectual demarcation.
Series2026
6 works
Pharmacopoeia of the Invisible
The series investigates healing cosmologies and Brazilian plants of power, with Jurema-preta (Mimosa tenuiflora) at its centre. Between science and enchantment, the works stitch together symbolic landscapes that reveal a deep relation between memory, ritual and transformation.
Research
The Pharmacopoeia of the Invisible: a visual investigation of healing through the lens of neuroscience and the Jurema-preta (Mimosa tenuiflora)
This research-creation investigates the intersections between the biodiversity of the Caatinga, the pharmacology of the Jurema-preta (Mimosa tenuiflora), and the healing processes within traditional Indigenous health systems. Drawing from the author's experience as a public health pharmacist in the Indigenous Health Care Subsystem (SasiSUS), the project proposes painting as a phenomenological device capable of translati…
Process2026 · 07
At the centre of the neural network, a maracá — not as a metaphor, but as a hypothesis: an ancestral technology for the reorganisation of perception. Work in progress.