From a young age, Antonio Obá experienced the friction between his Catholic upbringing and his African origins. The artist departs from his body and his own personal experience to question the foundations of the “official” Brazilian culture and art history, that deliberately erased the production of black and indigenous populations for centuries, giving rise to an act of resistance and reflection on the idea of national identity. Obá’s practice crosses between different languages. His work takes up performances, paintings, and sculptures that engage with liturgy and the constitutive elements of a ritualistic environments, while also dealing with charged political issues, such as the ever-present heritages of colonialism and slavery in contemporary Brazil. His own body is also central to his research, questioning the eroticization of the black male body and the construction of his own identity; a black body that inhabits and unveils in marginalized narratives.