Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil, 1968 \ Lives and works in Cachoeira
The work of Davi Rodrigues is inseparable from the experience of being born and living on the banks of the Paraguaçu River, in the city of Cachoeira, in the Recôncavo Baiano. His drawings, paintings, engravings, sculptures, and writings portray the characters, traditions, and legends — in addition to flora and fauna — of riverside life in a region of enormous African influence and remarkable cultural richness. A public figure of many facets and extremely active in the city’s social, cultural, political, and spiritual spheres, Davi produces work of great relevance to the history and memory of his community. He is the author of a kind of pictorial archive of the experiences in the Recôncavo: he paints his village with an eye to the universal.
Davi was born near the house of the great black actor Mário Gusmão, on Rua dos Artistas, where he lives today. In the 1970s, he began drawing and painting under the encouragement of his aunt Ziza. At the Hansen Bahia Foundation, he was a student of artist and teacher Noelice Costa Pinto, having learned the secrets of woodcutting from her. His current production explores acrylic painting on paper in what he calls “collections,” series on several themes, such as children’s games; carnival masks; saints and orixás; animals, and fruits from the Recôncavo. Davi is the creator of his language, marked by the visual exuberance of colors, strokes, and dots, which one of his fellow countrymen named “davidism”. This is a very particular approach to the pointillist technique, in which images are traced, drawn, painted, and retraced, using brushes, a stylus, and his own hands.
He participated in ten editions of the Bienal do Recôncavo (Centro Cultural Dannemann, São Félix, 1993-2013), and has been awarded in the XI edition of the event; he integrated the group show À Nordeste, curated by Bitu Cassundé, Clarissa Diniz and Marcelo Campos (SESC 24 de Maio, São Paulo, 2019) and exhibited individually and collectively in Salvador and several cities in the region, besides São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Montpellier (France) and Girona (Spain). He is the author of 4 handmade books and founded the collective and traveling event Varal das Artes. He gives art workshops to children from the public school system and usually participates in activities promoted by the Universidade Federal do Recôncavo. His work has been the subject of academic studies. He is Doctor Honoris Causa by Faculdade Formação Brasileira e Internacional de Capelania e a Ordem dos Capelães do Brasil (2022). His first solo show at Sé, A evolução do picolé, was held at the gallery in 2023.
