Jorge Rodrigues: Origins of a life's work


(Born in 1961 - deceased in 2004)

ORIGINS OF A LIFE’S WORK

In my work I have from the start tried to visualize the life of the ancestral sculptors of Africa, and I discovered that their work was pure of any influences such as European work. African work comes from before the classical era, the great philosophers, the great schools of art, and even the Christian era. It was concerned only with turning concrete the respect, awe and fascination of its ethnic group for all divine creation (Nature) and all its manifestations.

I became aware that the ability to give form to the energies contained in these creations was above all a divine gift, and for this reason the sacred or profane work was imbued with energies, information and feelings, conveyed through forms, symbols, colors and materials.

Because of the difficulty of visualizing works in wood with that content in the output of current artists and artisans, one can say this work would be an insignificant percentage if compared with the Negro influences and lineages in Brazil, this insignificance the result of the avarice and racism of other cultures.

To the discovery of these facts, when I entered my 26th year, I joined the gift I was endowed with to be able to form wood; and it called me and calls me to strive to keep alive and tangible the work of the ancestral sculptors, who I believe are present in me in sacred and/or genetic form.

Jorge Rodrigues

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