The Galerie Ilan Benattar presents Jérôme Sainte Rose‘s exhibition entitled Nixipae – Experience Ayahuasca. Saint Rose presents it thus:
Through personal connections, I met the artistic leader of the Huni Kuin tribe, known as Iba, who invited me to visit his village and participate in “Ayahuasca”, a ritual performed in its original environment. The tribe lives in the village of Chico Curumin, located in Acre, along the Alto do Jordão River in northwest Brazil. It is close to a Peruvian village, five hours by canoe from the town of Jordan. Eight families practice their traditional culture there, which includes the tea ritual “Ayahuasca” (Aya = soul + Huasca = vine), or “Nixipae”: a dark brown drink served during the ancestral Indian ceremony.
“Ayahuasca” is the result of a mixture of liana or “Ilana” with a leaf called “chacruna”. The ilana is macerated until it turns into smaller fibers, then boiled for six hours with these leaves, also kneaded, all prepared the day before the ceremonial, practiced by the Indians for centuries as a healing therapy to purify heart, body and mind.
After the tea is prepared, the ritual is celebrated in the main hut, in the center of the village, under the supervision of the Huni Kuin tribe master.
Traditional tribal music and candles are also part of this ceremony, in which everyone participates, men and women, adults and children.
Recently, the ceremonial has gained recreational ratings, as the effects of “Ayahuasca” provide hallucinogenic visions to those who drink the tea. They are depicted as multi-colored movements or scenes of animals such as monkeys, jaguars (jaguars) and snakes (jiboia); and visions of moving landscapes.
During my first experience with “Ayahuasca”, I experienced a sense of purging, a common physical reaction for beginners.
The second time, about thirty minutes after ingesting tea, led by traditional music, I began to hallucinate. It was when I closed my eyes and felt like I was in the middle of a multitude of colorful snakes fighting each other. I also saw jaguars painted in the same color and shape as the traditional woven Huni Kuin bracelets. This rich experience resulted in the image series titled “Nixi Pae”, a series of photos created with colored smoke – an element already present in my previous work “Jungle Soul” – which synthesizes the moment, reflects of my visions and illustrating the spiritual atmosphere of ayahuasca. Images that express the colors of my visions with the “vines”, which represent snakes, tree bark for the jaguars and leaves for the monkeys, all charged with the spiritual character of Iba.
The inverted image or mirror effect accentuates hallucinogenic visions in kaleidoscope format (psychedelic images). The resulting assembly forms leave the imagination free for interpretation.
Jérôme Sainte Rose
Born in Paris, based in São Paulo for 17 years, Jérôme has returned to France since 2020. He began his career in photography at the Louis Lumière school in 1983. In 1985, he entered the astre studio in Paris where he worked with world-renowned photographers such as Bert Stern, David Bailey, Albert Watson, Bill King, Steven Silverstein.
Jérôme combines his passion for travel and adventure with the realization of various photographic projects, such as his series in the Amazon on Indians and the forest.
From Paris to New York, from Bolivia to Jamaica, passing through different editorials and adventure companies. Jérôme has traveled the world collaborating with many brands and personalities. Jérôme Sainte Rose, an atypical photographer if ever there was one, has been photographing the movement of his passions to the rhythm of his emotions for many years.
The colors are frank, powerful, energizing, often blended into a psychedelic setting, magnifying the subject, as if to glorify the moment captured and inscribe an expression in eternity. An almost hypnotic eye that transports you into the magic of its gaze. His imagination brings to surrealism a very particular atmosphere between fusion and light. The artist is gifted with an aesthetic emotional intensity certainly linked to a rich and intense life which transports us into its dimension.
Jérôme Sainte Rose: Nixipae – Ayahuasca Experience
Since September 14, 2023
Galerie Ilan Benattar
803 avenue des rémouleurs
40150 Soorts-Hossegor
www.ilanbenattar.com
