The Chicken Salesman

Woodcut print on Werkdruck paper (Edition of 12), 60 x 50 cm, €550

My mother used to sit on the front porch of our house in Caxias, sometimes buying things from passing salesmen. The man who sold chickens would walk by with live chickens hanging from a stick on his shoulder. Years later he came by bicycle. In recent years, he had a motorcycle.

This piece is from Dreams and Memories, a series of 25 woodcuts I made to honor my beloved hometown of Caxias in Brazil’s Maranhão State. Caxienses are very religious and superstitious people, practicing traditions that come from Yoruba African, indigenous, and Portuguese cultures. The exhibition was held in the small town’s beautiful mansion of Mr. A. Silva, Caxias’s richest man—a place of fear and curiosity.