Antonio Oloxedê
Bio
Born in Salvador, Brazil, in 1967. Lives and works in Salvador, Brazil.
Artist and candomblé’s priest of the Ilê Asipà–one of the four remaining spaces of the cult of Baba Egun, a manifestation originating in West Africa and which remains alive only in Brazil–, Antonio Oloxedê employs elements of Yoruba's imagery vocabulary in the reinterpretation of tools of millinery tradition in the cult of the orixás and ancestors of Black Africa, mixing ritual ancestry, tradition and contemporaneity. With coconut palm taliscas, rattles and cowries, materials surrounded by meanings and symbologies, the artist collaborates for the maintenance and continuity of Afro-Brazilian cults, inserting subjective elements such as bright and open colors, without compromising the secrecy that touches the structure of the religions of African matrices, the core and foundation of sacred structures. Oloxedê was responsible for the restoration of the works and maintains the continuity of the legacy of his grandfather – founder of Ilê Asipà, artist and researcher – Mestre Didi. Oloxedê has participated in exhibitions at Centro Cultural da Barroquinha (former terreiro da Barroquinha), MAM-Bahia and MAR (Museu de Arte do Rio), all in Brazil.
