Essentially self-taught and of proletarian and indigenous origins, Djanira has been labeled by critics as a “naive” or “primitive” artist, and saw her work symbolically erased from the canon of Brazilian art. She began painting during the modernisation of Brazil in the 1940s, a period characterized by the tensions between nationalist figurative art and constructivist tendencies. She drew inspiration from the deep roots of Brazilian popular and indigenous culture, reflecting and re-elaborating its rich expressive and spiritual heritage.
