body paintings
Dig Ferreira @digferreira
The hands that hold the paper, but at the same time become a palette for the paints, when I need support when I’m drawing in the streets. After a few experiences, I start to see that paint on my hands no longer as dirt, but as a painting. The unfolding of another painting, body painting.
As the experiences passed, I advanced with painting to the arms, legs, torso and complete face. I feel that painting the body is joy, fun and protection. Painting your body can take you to places you’ve never felt before, configuring and re-configuring your own image, making you feel and also be other things besides human being. The non-human, often seen as a demon, beast, machine, ghost, warrior, or haunting.
Paintings that bring protection, strength and truth, the mud of the Amazon River spread on the body that disfigures the human image making me feel and reconnecting me with the forest.
Instead of trying to portray a specific moment or feeling, I just feel, listen and respect the call of my heart, when I feel like painting myself. Today, painting already occupies a place of ritual in my life, a real and beautiful costume, carrying symbols, forces and ancestral invocations.
