Eshu, the Yoruba Trickster

The three painted plates interrupted my flanerie through the exhibition room. I stood before them, lying on a short platform, “— An offering,” I thought. This work somehow moved me when I first saw it in the exhibition SARAVA at the Ana Schwarz Gallery in Rio de Janeiro in 2022. I am not a believer of any kind, but I do hold a deep respect for all Afro-Brazilian forms of religiosity. Looking back, I believe this work struck me so profoundly because it connected me to my childhood in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. I remember those days when I would come across several of these offerings left on the crossroads the night before in my neighborhood. There was a time when candomblé and umbanda worshippers enjoyed a certain level of freedom of worship before the Pentecostal churches, with their anti-African and racist narratives, began to dominate the social, political, and cultural landscape.

The ingenuity of the strokes and earthy brown tones that meld into the plate and with the skin of the black hands, soil, and wood creates a portal, a window through which one can imagine the moment these hands prepare the offerings. The hands present across all plates in the series care for the healing herbs, nurture the soil that transforms the matter, and light the candle that connects the realms, carrying wishes to being. The element of caring in the offering is humble and simple metaphysical intimacy with the beings believed to have inhabited this realm and ascended as deified ancestors.

Candeia shared that before these plates were painted for the circuits of contemporary art, she received commissions from various houses supplying religious communities. She depicted the specific manifestations of orixas, voduns, and guias. These plates thus carry a deep resonance with the sacred rituals anchored in Candeia’s devotions. As the artist recounted this story, she manifested her joy through the works contributing to sacred practices before transitioning into a different circuit.

I selected this work for the project because it speaks about an essential moment of the rituals of Afro-Brazilian religiosities. Exú is the Orixá of the communication between the realms of the Earth (aye) and the sacred (orum). When one needs to speak with any divinity, one must first make an offer to Exú, risking not having one’s message or request delivered. Offerings are made of food a divinity wishes to eat. Each divinity has its preferences. The offerings for Exú (padê) are usually made of farofa (fried manioc flour), cachaça (sugar cane liquor), and water.

Exú tem fome.
(Exú is hungry)

This text may be revised and updated regularly.