Afro-Indigenous Memory in the Work of Maria Lira Marques

In her early works, Lira Marques denounces the violence and neglect affecting the region near the Araçuaí River, in the sertão of Minas Gerais, where she was born. As a visual chronicle, her piece above presents a clay platform supporting anthropomorphic figures rising from the earth. These figures engage in different directions: upward, pleading to the heavens with an empty pot at their feet; forward, confronting the viewer with hands in the soil; and downward, where a body lies, observed by another figure. Made of raw clay mixed with ashes and other materials, the work belongs to the artist’s early productions. In these pieces, she employed techniques of creating nativity scenes passed down from her mother, Odília.

Through her solidary and sacred gesture, Lira Marques incorporates into the faith-based pieces of Jequitinhonha a prayer marked by social and racial critique. Her sculptures vividly express the hardships of life on the margins, a reality she shares with other riverside dwellers of the Araçuaí River. Early pieces like Me ajude a levantar [Help Me Rise Up], Desaforo [Affront], and Vida triste é a vida da pobreza [Sad Life is the life of Poverty] (likely from the 1970s) combine expressions and techniques that affirm her territorial belonging. The artist’s vision is shaped by the sociocultural movement of the Jequitinhonha Valley, which challenges stereotypes of poverty propagated by the developmentalist industry.

The mask depicted above features prominent lines around the mouth and eyes and was overfired, a common coloring technique in the region that recalls ancient knowledge. The facial features evoke the indigenous physiognomy of the area, as Lira mentions in several interviews. At eye level, there’s a touch on the third eye, with a feather crest in high relief above, connecting the seniority of human expression to the crest. The intense color and composition reflect Lira’s archaeological process, portraying Indigenous and African roots. The third eye, a symbol of consciousness, retrieves the memory of a people whose Indigenous identities have been long repressed. Lira Marques` masks, as a political acts, merge ancestral techniques, deep research, and intimate knowledge of the land. The artist utilizes various types of clay and firing methods with native materials, underscoring the ancient ceramic tradition of Jequitinhonha.

After a medical condition that halted her from working wth ceramic sculptures, Lira Marques embarked on a new artistic phase, creating paintings and drawings with earth pigments. These pigments, made by her in her studio, are a blend of earth earth, water, and glue. As a great connoisseur of the soil formations of the sertão, Lira crafted a series of paintings that recently culminated in the collection titled Meus bichos do sertão [My Beasts of the Sertão], featuring animal-like figures painted on paper or pebbles. In the image above, the quartz pebble, typical of the Calhauzinho stream banks—whose name means “round stone”—is painted with natural pigments.

In this piece, the snake biting its own tail follows the stone’s natural contours, evoking the symbol of Ouroboros. The cyclical nature of beginning and end, as well as the interplay between material and representation, are integral to the piece’s visual narrative. The stone, sourced from the Calhauzinho stream, serves as more than just a canvas; it sustains the snake, just as many traditional houses in the region. Beyond their functional roles as supports, polishing tools, and ornaments, these pebbles are wove into the local imagination, lending their namens to events, locations, and radio programs. Often disregarded as mere gravel, Lira Marques reinforces their importance by using them as a canvas, for these often undervalued stones symbolize prosperity in the riverbeds of Jequitinhonha.

Natural pigments are widely found throughout the ceramic tradition of the Jequitinhonha Valley, and Lira has refined their use on paper, canvas, and quartz pebbles. The image of the snake returning to itself highlights one of the richest aspects of Lira’s work — where ancestral techniques meet contemporary critique and reflection. Straddling worlds, Lira Marques stands out in this gap between the belonging of traditional peoples of the Jequitinhonha Valley and the incursions of globalization. Like a wise creature of the sertão, Lira’s work navigates its earth formations, emphasizing the importance of the biome in shaping her poetics. At a time when the Jequitinhonha Valley is being marketed as the “Lithium Valley”, Lira Marques’ work rises as a prayer for all of us, a body of art that, from its origins, has helped us rise.

Maria Lira Marques is an artist, intellectual, and activist from the Jequitinhonha Valley. Acknowledged as a master of traditional knowledge by the the Federal University of the Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys (UFVJM).

Maya Quilolo, a quilombola, anthropologist, artist, and researcher, is the founder of the Mukambu Atelier located in the municipality of Araçuaí.

The photographs and information are taken from personal interviews with the artist and from the book Maria Lira, by Rodrigo Moura, Luciara Ribeiro, and Yasmin Abdalla; Edited by Marina Dias Teixeira and Yasmin Abdalla; with photographs by Frei Chico and translations by Georgia F. Reynolds and Jess Oliveira. 1st ed. – São Paulo: Act. Editora, 2024.

Translation: Jess Oliveira.