Figura Nocturna II

2020 - Painting (Painting)
40 x 30 cm

Figura Noturna II by Antônio Obá depicts a dark figure, surrounded by a halo of light set against an even darker background. He has one eye open, which stares intensely at the viewer. The image relates to a theme recurrent in the artist’s practice: the figure lying awake at night. He is the one who never sleeps, or at least who sleeps with one eye open, vigilant and aware. Obá often works at night and, by extension, the painting can be seen as an allegory of the role of artists in general, as ever-present observers of the world. The work shrouds itself in an added layer of complexity if we consider another allegory often used by Obá: the need to always be alert against the insecurity, misinformation, and strife that spreads around the world.

From a young age, Antônio Obá experienced the friction between his Catholic upbringing and his African origins. The artist departs from his body and his own personal experience to question the foundations of the “official” Brazilian culture and art history, that deliberately erased the production of black and indigenous populations for centuries, giving rise to an act of resistance and reflection on the idea of national identity. Obá’s practice crosses between different languages. His work takes up performances, paintings, and sculptures that engage with liturgy and the constitutive elements of a ritualistic environments, while also dealing with charged political issues, such as the ever-present heritages of colonialism and slavery in contemporary Brazil. His own body is also central to his research, questioning the eroticization of the black male body and the construction of his own identity; a black body that inhabits and unveils in marginalized narratives.

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