Ayrson Heráclito’s art and scholarship fuse ancestral energies, rooted in West African cosmologies, with his own poetic trajectory, expanding the conceptual reach of Candomblé Nagô-Ketu, in which he was consecrated, into contemporary art. Candomblé is a religion that emerged from the convergence of spiritual knowledge among African peoples, including the Yoruba, forcibly brought to Brazil. For believers, life must be nourished not only biologically but also as a process of maintaining vital energy, which unfolds through rituals and offerings.
In the Biennale Arte 2026, Heráclito presents Juntó, a series that includes stainless steel sculptures and drawings in ink and watercolour. Conceived as a tribute to Mestre Didi, a pioneer in introducing African-centred perspectives into Brazilian art, the series engages with insignias and tools related to the Orixás, or the patheon of Candomblé deities. In Candomblé, each person is guided by at least two Orixás: while the primary one is the mother or father guardian, the secondary deity offers emotional support and fosters wisdom. The 222 drawings correspond to the full matrix of juntós – the combinations of primary and secondary Orixás – accompanied by oríkì poems describing the energies that resonate within the composition.
Heráclito’s work operates as a point of intersection, animated less by fixed meanings than by the fertile in-between – an act of aesthetic creation that conceptually mirrors the spiritual repertoire.
—Thiago de Paula Souza
