Adriana Rocha

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On the Banks of the Tapajós
drawings and paintings by Adriana Rocha

A day of travel down the Amazon River. At the bow, the muddy water meets the sky. Dawn breaks. A dark line marks the horizon. The torpor of the night is gone, and a light breeze animates the day, which so far holds only one promise: a heat that brings sweat. It is the Amazonian summer at its peak.

The São Bartolomeu sails cautiously. With the drought, there are sandbanks and the danger of running aground. Experienced, the pilot steers the boat slowly. From the deck, a long green fringe borders the water. Then the forest, like intricate embroidery, stretches as far as the eye can see. Humid haze, mosquitoes, and endless beauty…

From time to time, a column of smoke betrays a burning patch of forest. Will everything end in fire? Suddenly, nature seems deeply weary. As if by magic, everything grows still and the sun slowly descends until it touches the river. Night arrives gently. Discreetly, some passengers go downstairs to drink. Conversation flows late into the night, accompanied by the sound of a guitar. There are no rooms, beds, or partitions. In the main hall, hammocks sway to the rhythm of the engine. Rocked by this motion, one sleeps as if in a cradle. Those who stay awake contemplate the stars. Wishes are fulfilled only in dreams.

Adriana tells of her journey, and I retell it in my own way. Memory is like a rope grasped by many hands, as in the Círio de Nazaré procession.

We cannot dock at the village of Juruti. In the lower Amazon region of Pará state, it hasn’t rained for six months, and the river water has receded, leaving a wide stretch of land exposed. So, we must anchor near a clay bank further ahead. Those who disembark walk across planks laid on the sand and soon meet local people. The gathering causes a bit of commotion. Children shout with joy. They are given markers, crayons, and colored pencils. As if by magic, these treasures are pulled from the little bag that came from São Paulo. Adriana’s proposal is to create a large illustrated book. The curumins (Indigenous children) tell their stories and on paper recreate characters and adventures. These are days of play and art. Finally, the large sheets of paper are sewn together with palm fiber. It turns out beautifully. At the farewell, there is longing. On the riverbank, the small artists wave goodbye.

The journey continues. In a few hours, the “voadeira” (speedboat) travels from Juruti to Óbidos. This is the narrowest point of the Amazon, where the Portuguese built the Fort of Santo Antônio dos Pauxis. The simple houses and the Church of Sant’Ana attest to the place’s antiquity. Staying at the home of an old friend, a doctor dedicated to the riverside community, Adriana integrates into local habits. On an intensely hot afternoon, she goes to cool off in a creek. To dive into those cold waters and linger under the green shade of the forest is to rediscover the pleasure of life’s essential things.

In Santarém, the greenish waters of the Tapajós meet the muddy Amazon. Its banks have been inhabited by humans since time immemorial. Territory of the remnants of the Munduruku and Muirapinima tribes, the region has a history dating back to the Jesuit missions that came with colonization. Before the priests, the shamans; before the cell phone, the drum; before, the canoe, river fishing, the net, the hut, the den, the jaguar, the forest… before. They say that beneath the port cranes lies an Indigenous cemetery.

An hour’s drive brings one to Alter do Chão. A paradisiacal place. Vast beaches of fine white sand. Lagoa Verde, Ilha do Amor, Floresta Encantada are evocative names that inspire dreams. In this spirit, tourism attracted by the beauties of the so-called “Amazonian Caribbean” is growing. The legend of the pink river dolphin has become a festival. Even though people dance the carimbo until dawn, not everything is joy. On the trails, under the trees, by the river, one hears a murmur of intimidated voices. The waters have turned murky and sickness has reached the villages, say the forest peoples. Scholars confirm the disaster comes from river contamination by mercury. With the complacent gaze of the authorities, illegal gold mining fells the forest, pierces the earth, and poisons the fish. The riverside and Indigenous populations are wary. How long will this assault on life continue?

Both dazzled and apprehensive, Adriana returns to São Paulo. Under the impact of what she saw, she dedicates a year to the series Outras margens (Other Banks). They are drawings and paintings—transfigured records of her journey to Pará. The canvases bring landscapes, and the papers cradle dead tree trunks. There is a certain melancholy in this body of work, yet it remains seductive. Its power comes from beauty in decay, slowly wearing away. At this point, it is worth hearing Adriana’s words: “In my painting work, I have been dealing with the concept of ruin as destruction or erasure of memory, with painting itself constituted by a continuous movement of construction and destruction. I think of it as a rewriting, in which the remaining image, the constructed image, translates this collage of times and memories.”

This creative process speaks volumes about what moves her. These are procedures she has developed over the years and which now distinguish her work. Adriana invariably begins by preparing a black background. Over this neutral field, she superimposes an image derived from photography, most often her own. Then, she applies colors obtained from mixing pigments she prepares herself. Next, she proceeds with successive washes and occasional abrasion of the canvas surface. In this making and remaking, much degrades, yet something remains and gains new layers, in a movement that can be understood as a metaphor for the natural cycle of life.

Another particularity. In the exhibition, the drawing, due to its scale and strength, contrasts with the painting. The precision with which Adriana weaves the texture of deteriorating trunks comes from her talent in graphite drawing. The result is surprising. Although the drawings achieve minute detail, the eye is drawn to the whole, both in form and meaning. Here, the artistic genre of still life can be interpreted as Vanitas, a device used by certain painters in the 16th and 17th centuries to provoke moral reflection on the transience of life. Today, we look at these large trunks as signs of forest destruction, promoted by the unchecked exploitation of natural resources.

Maria Alice Milliet
Curator

September, 2025