Ananda Nahú: Iara enters the room

Ananda Nahú’s Encantaria de Iara did not ask its paintings to remain separate objects. In the exhibition described by WAYFARER Brazil in July 2026, six acrylic canvases worked together inside Rosewood São Paulo’s White Box gallery, extending a story across the room rather than offering six unrelated views.

The show, presented from 2 July to 15 August 2026, formed the second part of the artist’s Encantarias trilogy. Katia D’Avillez curated the presentation, with exhibition design by Danilo Garcia. Its place in a hotel did not make the work a decorative interval between other activities: the spatial treatment made the gallery itself part of the subject.

Iara, the freshwater figure of Brazilian folklore, provided the central image. Nahú connected woman and forest through roots, rivers and the jaguar, building a vocabulary of feminine force and relationships with nature. Vibrant colour, graphic patterns and poetic text appeared within the painted surfaces.

The project also brought together two scales of her practice. Mural painting requires an understanding of architecture; painting on canvas can concentrate attention on a smaller detail. Encantaria de Iara used the latter medium with the spatial ambition of the former.

The archive placed the exhibition alongside other Brazilian artistic projects at the property. What remains distinctive is Nahú’s refusal to leave mythology at the level of illustration. The story occupied a space that viewers had to enter. The exhibition has ended; this is an account of its visual and spatial proposition.

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Adapted from the WAYFARER Brazil archive, first published 2026-07-02. English adaptation: 6 October 2026. This is an archival account, not a report of a new visit. Exhibitions, collections and menu details are described in their original context, not as current availability.