Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel presents Thapiri/Sonho, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s first exhibition at his gallery in São Paulo, following a 2023 solo presentation at MASP, Tudo Isso Somos Nós. Hakihiiwe, a Yanomami artist based in the Venezuelan Amazon, brings to FDAG Jardins a group of paintings and monotypes that articulate a visual language rooted in Indigenous knowledge and ways of seeing. Composed of lines, dots, circles, and repeating patterns, the works on view, previously shown in an eponymous exhibition at MAC Parque Forestal in Santiago, Chile, draw from daily encounters in the forest. Animal traces, plant structures, and natural formations are translated into a graphic vocabulary shaped by synthesis and rhythm.

Based in the Yanomami community of Mahekoto-Theri, Hakihiiwe has developed a practice that reflects the continuity between lived and imagined experience. His compositions echo the mnemonic structures of Yanomami oral traditions, where repetition and accumulation function as methods for sustaining and transmitting knowledge across generations. Through this approach, his work produces a form of memory that is at once bodily, symbolic, and communal.

The works on view link what is observed during the day with what is encountered in dreams: presences, signs, and forms of knowledge conveyed by spirits and other beings. In this exhibition, painting operates as both record and conduit, situating the viewer within a layered experience where different planes of existence intersect. The presentation reflects Hakihiiwe’s ongoing commitment to preserving and activating the cultural, symbolic, and ecological knowledge of his community.

This year, Hakihiiwe’s work has been presented in major international exhibitions, including Wayamou: Lenguas de lo común at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, where he exhibits in dialogue with Laura Anderson Barbata, from whom he first learned to craft natural fiber paper through an exchange of knowledge in the early 1990s. He is currently included in Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, where his work is shown in a large-scale installation of paintings and drawings. The artist is featured in Exposition Générale at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, the inaugural exhibition at the institution’s new space; where his works are held in the foundation’s permanent collection.

The works in this exhibition were first shown at Sala TAC in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2023. In Chile, the exhibition Thapiri / Sueño was curated by Paola Nava and Luis Romero in 2025. We would like to extend our special thanks to Melina Fernández Temes and Luis Romero from ABRA Caracas, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s gallery in Venezuela, as well as to MAC Santiago de Chile and Paola Nava for their support and collaboration.