Palm Tree in My Mind's Eye

Eventually, they started calling me a plant namer. My knowledge is not biological. It is materially, spiritually, and sentimentally connected to the rainforest, to its energy.

– Abel Rodriguez

Through this exhibition, LAMB Gallery aims to explore how a group of artists from indigenous communities in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, who are deeply rooted in the Amazon rainforest, channel its rhythms, forms and sacred geometries into their artistic practice. Their works, drawing from ancestral knowledge and memory, emphasize the fragile connection between cultural preservation and the protection of the natural world. The artists, including Chico da Silva, Jaider Esbell, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Abel Rodriguez and the Silät collective, each communicate a deep connection to their communities through their painting as their artistic practices are steeped in ancestral tradition and knowledge. A common thread which runs between the artists is the focus on cosmology, an exploration of the interdependence between human life and the environment, which is an outlook that has been passed through generations within their communities. As described by Esbell, “I’ve never taken a course in art history, I’ve never taken a course in almost anything related to art, but very early on I had access to cosmology, right? Another type of art.”

Each artist characteristically draws from the patterns of the Amazon rainforest into their works, reflecting their personal and cultural connection to the land. Da Silva’s vibrant, and often fantastical, depictions of flora and fauna evoke the biodiversity of the rainforest, transforming it into a symbolic celebration of the natural world. In contrast stylistically, Hakihiiwe's minimal, abstract works, reduced to a restrained color palette, echo a form of visual communication from the Yanomami culture, distilling nature’s shapes and formations into symbols of cultural memory and resilience. Similarly, the works of Silät, a collective of female weavers from the Wichí community whose name means “information” or "alert,” use textiles and geometric motifs as essential tools for conveying messages and narrating histories.

Esbell’s dynamic depictions of nature are inextricably linked to issues of land rights and the ecological crises facing indigenous communities, using his art to advocate for a deeper awareness of these urgent struggles. Lastly, Rodriguez, drawing on his expertise as a botanical expert among the Nonuya people, creates memory-focused renderings of rainforest ecosystems. Rodriguez, much like the other artists in the exhibition, aims to preserve his visions of the Amazon, ones that he can recall even after his displacement from the rainforest: “I see the palm tree in my mind’s eye, and I make its roots, trunk, bark, buds, branches—I make them in the air and on paper.”