Cecê Ovelar

– Paraguayan and American with roots in Brasil, I began my art career in my early 20s in South America while doing ethnographic research and came into a method of applied anthropology through street art. Since I was a child, I’d always studied and mixed cultural ideas, constantly seeking out distant societies to understand what it meant to be human, to better know my place in the world. I paid close attention to the world around me and eventually discovered a manner to build a world by design, a refuge from the egotistical and materialistic 21st century globalized world. My artwork came to represent both real and imaginary people, shown through a fictional island nation named Kilombu. A middle-way, agrarian island pulling inspiration from the collective cultural resilience of the Global South in the face of marginalization, capitalism, cultural erosion, and post-colonialism.

Kilombu has grown and evolved across many countries; though it found and connected its roots between my homes in Paraguay, Brasil, Thailand, China, and Senegal. Kilombu, to date, has resulted in 300+ murals, 8 solo exhibitions, 16 group exhibitions, and 4 art residencies (Nigeria, China, Thailand, and Cape Verde).

Aside from being an artist, I currently work as an Art teacher for the International School of Dakar, working directly in applied anthropology to address issues in international education in Senegal and across Africa.-