Rember Yahuarcani
“Myths are the rivers of our memory. They speak of where we come from and hold the key to our past, our present and our hopes for the future.
The memory of our grandparents flows through these rivers. It is there that we must seek the wisdom to resist forgetfulness, discrimination and exclusion.”
From indigenous cosmovision to contemporary indigenous art
Rember Yahuarcani is an artist, author, and activist of the Uitoto nation, occupying a distinctive place within contemporary indigenous art.
His painting is shaped by the Uitoto cosmovision, in which spiritual beings, plants, animals, and humans are part of the same reality. The boundaries between the human and the non-human, between the visible, dream, memory, and myth, remain open.
His work draws on the stories, knowledge, and collective memory of his community, as well as on his own life in the Amazon. The ancestral world and the oral narratives of the Uitoto are not mere tradition here, but part of a living present.
Between expressive luminosity and meticulous detail, Yahuarcani unfolds a visual world in which this understanding of reality takes on a contemporary form. Beings, figures, and pulsating textures appear, transform, and at times seem to merge into one another.
Like a river, these narratives do not remain in the past either. They keep flowing, taking on new forms in his painting. Some images hold the intensity of a vision; others open spaces of meditation and stillness.
Though his painting may at first seem unfamiliar to viewers unacquainted with its cultural references, the point is not to fully decode every symbol. Part of its power lies precisely in what is felt intuitively yet resists definitive classification.
The stories in Yahuarcani’s work carry memory, knowledge and ways of understanding the relationship between people, territory and other living beings.
For him, painting is also a way of keeping this knowledge alive and passing it on to new generations. Not as something fixed that must be preserved unchanged, but as part of a culture that continues to think, create and change.
This cultural dimension is accompanied by a clear awareness of the present. His work addresses issues that directly affect Indigenous communities in the Amazon: territory, education, health and self-determination.
Yet his paintings do not illustrate a political discourse. These concerns belong to the same reality from which his stories and images emerge.
In Yahuarcani’s painting, inherited knowledge and contemporary experience belong to the same present.
Tradition is not a way of looking back at a lost world, but something that continues to generate thought, images and new ways of seeing.
Despite an increasingly international career, Yahuarcani remains closely connected to his community and territory.
He returns regularly to spend time with his family, in a life that continues to inspire his work. The territory, its people, and the stories passed down there remain at the heart of his painting.
Rember Yahuarcani’s work has been presented in museums and cultural institutions worldwide,
including at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and is held in major public and private collections.
He is also an award-winning author whose literary work and painting share the same source:
the memory, stories and knowledge of the Amazon.
Contemporary indigenous art
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