MACHAS

The Creation Of The Night

Fernando Chamarelli‘s latest mural is an impressive 26 metres long and tells the story of “Criação Da Noite”, an Amazonian tale of the Atroari tribe that explains how the moon, the stars and the setting of the sun came to be.

In the beginning, there was no night, only the day.  Muha, the guardian of Life, controlled the sun and when he left to go hunting a curious man reached up to touch it, fracturing it into a thousand pieces. Then night fell on the Earth and the people were lost in the dark. When Muha came back as punishment the curious man was turned into a monkey with a golden fist that shone like the sun that he had broken. Muha couldn’t restore the situation as it was before but he made the moon and the starts to light the dark of the night.

Traditional and popular Brazilian culture is a recurrent theme in Fernando’s art, and his murals and paintings often show a zoomorphic element, with animals and gods woven together in an elaborate mosaic. This particular mural was part of an initiative by the Social Service of Commerce (SESC) - an organization that supports traditional culture in Brazil - so it made perfect sense for them to commission Fernando to brighten the exterior walls of their theatre, especially given that Fernando had already painted a mural inside the theatre earlier this year.

Fernando’s aesthetic has also been very popular internationally, with his illustrations and paintings exhibited in England, Canada, Spain, Germany and the United States and as one of the most successful emerging artists in Brazil, Chamarelli is definitely one to watch.