Jungle Dweller

‘Headlines’ is a series of colorful portraits inspired by newspaper photographs of fellow world citizens. Here: a jungle dweller in Brazil, photographed by Marlena Waldthausen.

Was it the man who struck me or the desolate landscape in which he moves? Am I imagining it or does his posture have something despondent about it, with those low shoulders? He is armed, though.
The newspaper says the man is a Karipuna Indian, an indigenous inhabitant of the tropical rainforest in the Amazon. There is a battle for forest land in Brazil: indigenous people want to preserve the rainforest, farmers are looking for farmland, timber merchants see gold in the tropical hardwood.
I painted this “powerless keeper of the forest”, as the newspaper calls him, like the other ‘Headlines’, in washed ink technique. I intentionally kept the impression quite vague, less elaborate and colorful than many of the other portraits. This painting almost seems to fade, as the rainforest disappears before this man’s eyes.

Material: mixed media

Dimensions: 40 x 50 x 4 cm