The dissection of the jurema-preta (Mimosa tenuiflora)

About the work

The dissection of the jurema-preta operates on the sensitive frontier between pharmaceutical botany and the spiritual anatomy of the Caatinga. Taking as its basis the scientific rigour of plant dissection, which analyses the tissues and structures of a species, the painting subverts that clinical gaze by revealing what no microscope can catalogue.

The composition, structured in three horizontal planes, reveals the sacred anatomy of Mimosa tenuiflora, showing that its roots, its trunk and its crown are connected to the flows of the earth and to the celestial firmament in an inseparable circuit of life and energy.

The tripartite composition — cosmological, terrestrial and root — evokes Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's Amerindian perspectivism, in which nature is perceived as a person.