Antonio Henrique Amaral

Floating on a green background is a bunch of bananas, only one of which is left hanging. The fruit occupies most of the space of the composition. It is thick and ripe. Entitled Banana, the work is part of a large series of paintings made by Amaral between 1967 and 1975 in which the artist uses this fruit as a symbolic element of Brazil and a denunciation tool of the dictatorship that began in 1964. The banana becomes a “tortured”, “disappeared”, and “dismembered” body. The solitude of the fruit in this painting highlights the then-critical situation of Brazil, as well as the artist’s position in a highly oppressive artistic context.