Diadorim is the emblematic character from João Guimarães Rosa’s book Grande Sertão Veredas (1956). The original book title refers to the veredas—small paths through wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of  buritizais, groups of the buriti tree that cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais, that form a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect and any road can lead anywhere.

Diadorim is a warrior, and the symbol of a strong sacrifice. She is an ambiguous character constructed in the denial of the feminine to live in freedom from the beyond-sex realm. Analysis of this character invites an evaluation of  the relationship between body and power as the foundation of the known history of gender domination. 

In this series of paintings, I propose a feminist reading to investigate the double side of the sexuality that involves Diadorim: man and alive while dressed, woman and dead when undressed.

Text by Regina Parra. On the occasion of the Sertão: 36th Panorama of Brazilian Art, Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, 2019.