Rember Yahuarcani’s work translates the unique cosmology of the Uitoto, which teaches that the illusion of reality precedes reality. His artistic process recreates that moment of genesis in the creation story, where everything is possible. Not only do his paintings preserve the oral traditions of his ancestors, they also contain a universal message: that humans and nature are one. His shift from a narrative perspective to a more pictorial style, as well as his use of materials, were deliberate artistic choices in his mission to integrate into the contemporary art world. 

Rember Yahuarcani is an artist and activist from the White Heron clan of the Uitoto nation of the Amazon. His works have been described as environmentalist art, avant-garde, plastic art, surrealism, and Indigenous art: a category that the artist himself rejects. But one thread that connects all his breathtaking works is that they all tell the story of life, death, rebirth and creation. The myths of the Uitoto, told by the artist’s grandmother in her native tongue, are the inspiration for his paintings. 

From his early narrative landscapes, to more Western pictorial depictions, ancestral wisdom is translated into a universal language. His use of materials such as vegetable dyes and Amazonian fig tree, also known as Llanchama, expanded to include acrylics and traditional canvas. The change in materials marked a significant change in direction as he tried to integrate into the art world as a contemporary painter. The stylistic shift from narrative, traditionalist work to pictorial forms, was his way of breaking out of the box that the art world put him in. He intended to subvert the limitations of categories such as Indigenous art.

In an interview for COOLT, Rember explains: “What motivated me to change my pictorial register was that I did not want my work to be an ethnographic piece, not an object of anthropological study but an object of art. I also did not want to continue explaining my works as Indigenous art, that this scene was a dance, that another was Uitotos hunting or mambing, etc. I simply wanted to hang my work and, like any other contemporary artist, it would be the one that possesses the necessary elements and characteristics to speak for itself.”

Rember Yahuarcani’s use of different materials also adds symbolic spiritual meaning to his work. His use of black fabrics instead of Llanchama, provides a dark background for the colorful world of his grandmother’s stories to come to life. Beings of light contrast with the black background that represents the darkness of nights in the jungle of the Amazon. In Uitoto mythology, darkness symbolizes that first moment of creation where there was only water, cold and the absence of light.

The plants and animals of Rember’s paintings are alive. They have motion and a biology of their own. Some look as if they are evolving on the canvas. Many are depicted as being in-between animal and human. Many of them are human, as in the Uitoto cosmology, all beings are one with The Creator. The Aimeni clan’s version of the creation story says that all beings are part of a dream that The Creator had. All of creation is a dream and we exist within it as part of a higher being, who is hallucinating us in its sleep. There is no boundary between human and nature, human and god. The glowing vines and trees, evocative of the psychedelic ayahuasca plants native to the Amazon, represent the potential of plants to be powerful spiritual teachers. 

The “hallucinated beings” of Rember’s own imagination, are composed of different elements of plants and animals blended together to create new characters. Rember’s artistic process is informed by the Uitoto teachings that say all beings in the universe are connected. The creation becomes the creator, and in turn, his creation takes on a life of its own. All his forms, from the spirits of Uitoto mythology, to the creatures from his imagination, have their own highly-complex and life-supporting systems. Their own light. Their own bioluminescense. 

When Rember Yahuarcani paints, he hears the voice of his grandmother. It is from this voice that he receives the inspiration for his art. Her name was Martha López. She was the keeper of myths, the link to the Uitoto’s past, and the matriarch of the Aimeni clan. An incredibly strong and inspiring woman, she was also a witness to the genocide of her people, in a dark period of colonial history known as the Rubber Boom. 

The Rubber Boom of the 19th century was a time in Peruvian history when rubber was first commercialized and extracted. The rubber tree of the Amazon, which held a deep cultural significance to the Aimeni clan, was seen as an exploitable economic resource by Europeans. Rubber barons sought to monopolize the industry using Indigenous slave-labor. It was an all-out genocide. Europeans massacred and enslaved thousands of Indigenous people, leading to the disintegration of many tribes and societies along the Putumayo River. But Martha López survived, passing down the cultural traditions of her family that the Europeans tried to destroy. One Uitoto story says that after the terrible fires in which Europeans burned Indigenous people, thousands of butterflies appeared. Rising out of the burned bodies, the butterflies were the spirits of the people who died.

Rember Yahuarcani transforms the pain of his people, and the loss that he has experienced, into healing medicine on canvas. A true artist, he creates beauty from the suffering of life. An alchemical process that turns darkness into light. The art that he makes for his ancestors, also carries a universal message. One that reminds us of our connection to nature, and to each other. 

His work contributes to a decolonial narrative by preserving the myths of The Uitoto nation and the White Heron clan. Knowledge about the Indigenous communities that reside in the Amazon leads to holistic understanding of the Amazon and its ecological issues. Rember’s art and activism bring awareness to the history of his clan and their ongoing fight against colonialism. He frequently calls out elitism and white supremacy in the contemporary Peruvian art world. Peru needs to recognize the agency of Indigenous people and give them inclusion in society and political representation in all levels of the state.

Once the land is no longer exploited and extracted for resources, once society and the art world recognize the achievements of Indigenous people, once Indigenous people gain back the right to their land, then we shall all be free. 

“The Amazon is not only a green space with great biodiversity and a tropical climate. It is its people, its dangers, its sadness, its scarcity, its extreme poverty, and its polluted rivers. I live with all of them and try to show the possibilities of the Indigenous world to create genuine work that has identity. I also live with its myths and stories, which are not static, but in constant movement. In the words of a fisherman or a hunter, the myth takes on another form and movement, like a great snake that slithers among the roots. The myth transforms itself into something real, alive, and transcendent that doesn’t die. In this dynamic, human is nature, and nature is human.”

– Rember Yahuarcani, artist, activist, alchemist.