NELLY SHEIMI
Nelly Sheimi( b. 1970, Alto Orinoco, Venezuela) is a Yanomami artist and artisan from the Mahekototeri community. Drawing on her knowledge of basketry and the influence of her son-in-law Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, she has developed a body of work that seeks to reclaim the traditional designs of basketry and body painting while introducing innovations in composition and color.
It is a Yanomami tradition to use the body as a canvas in day-today life and in festivities and ceremonies, in which participants paint themselves with onoto( achiote or annatto) and charcoal. Since 2022, Nelly has been translating this ancestral practice to paper. She draws freely, filling the surface as if it were a body or basket; what may seem to us as abstractions are recognizable tropes to anyone in the Yanomami community. Sheimi uses acrylic on recycled cane-fiber paper. Among her motifs are the kraya( caterpillar), the kirithami mamiki( bird’ s foot), wii and shote basket designs, and warora peno mayo( snail trails). These drawings are more an attempt to describe objects and the natural world than to convey any symbolic meaning.
Sheimi’ s works featured in the collective exhibition Hashimi. A treinta años de la masacre( Hashimi. The massacre thirty years on)( ABRA, Caracas, 2023).( LUIS ROMERO).
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