Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil, 1944 \ Lives and works in Feira de Santana

To study architecture, in the 1960s Juraci Dórea moved from his hometown to Salvador, where he witnessed the intense cultural production that arose there out of the encounter between the experimental vanguardist attitude and the singular experience of a territory steeped in an Afro-Brazilian heritage. After earning his degree, Dórea returned to his hometown of Feira de Santana. There, he began to construct a consistent oeuvre, which gradually brought about a convergence of contemporary visual languages with backcountry roots and traditions. In the 1980s, Dórea’s telluric connection took on another power of magnitude. After beginning his Projeto Terra [Project Earth] (1982 – ongoing ), he not only assimilated backcountry artisanal know-how, but also traveled deep into the Bahian backcountry to implant his works in that landscape, often making use of the materials he found in the fields and pastures. Due to this new focus, the primary public of his work was no longer the urban visitor of cultural institutions but rather an audience consisting largely of backcountry dwellers. The records produced in this context, in the form of photographs, films, reports, and texts, document not only Dórea’s creative trajectory but also countless shocks and rearrangements between conceptions of art, language, and territory.

In 2024, Dórea presents “Breveterno: notas para uma lírica político-mística da estiagem,” a solo exhibition curated by Deyson Gilbert at Martins&Montero in São Paulo. In 2023, he showcased a solo exhibition at Galeria Jaqueline Martins in Brussels, and in 2021, he featured a solo project as part of the 34th São Paulo International Biennial at MuBE (Brazilian Museum of Sculpture and Ecology). He has participated in important institutional exhibitions, such as Contemporary Artists from Bahia (São Paulo’s Museum of Contemporary Art, 1983), the 19th International Biennial of São Paulo (1987), the 43rd Venice Biennial (Italy, 1989), 3rd Havana Biennial (Cuba, 1989), Projeto Terra (Université Paris 8, France, 1999), 3rd Bahia Biennial (Salvador, 2014), 10th Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre, 2015), Memories of Underdevelopment (San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, USA, 2017), À Nordeste (SESC 24 de Maio, São Paulo, 2019). His works are part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia (Salvador/BA), Museum of Contemporary Art of Feira de Santana (BA), Museum of Contemporary Art of Paraná (MAC-PR), among others.