MADE OF BLOOD & GOLD
Made of Blood & Gold deepens Jônatas Chimen’s engagement with the emotional realities of exile, displacement, and identity reconstruction. Expanding upon his earlier installation In Thy Tent I Dwell, this series reflects on migration not only as rupture, but also as transformation. Drawing from his own family archives and personal migrations—from Brazil to the U.S., and later to France—Chimen fuses autobiographical depth with symbolic resonance. Muted earth tones and archetypal figures evoke the migrant’s liminal state—neither fully rooted in the past nor secure in the future. The recurring motif of the red heifer, symbolizing purification and sacrifice, reframes migration as both loss and renewal. Landscapes blend European and Brazilian terrains, suggesting cultural hybridity and adaptive belonging. Through restrained color and layered symbolism, Chimen presents migration as a generative process—where trauma gives rise to reinvention. His work becomes a visual elegy for uprooted lives, and a testament to resilience.
Detailed Viewing:
Book: I am Jônatas: Made of Blood & Gold
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I am Jônatas: Made of Blood & Gold, emerges nearly a decade after In Thy Tent I Dwell (2016), exhibited at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami, marking a profound evolution in Jônatas Chimen's artistic voice. This deeply intimate memoir captures the artists struggle to create art while living the daily realities of an immigrant. Drawing from his Latino, Sephardi, Brazilian, and American identities, Chimen reflects on the complexities of displacement and renewal. His color palette, influenced by Brazilian colonial art, reverses the traditional gaze, projecting his New Worldness onto European subjects and landscapes. In doing so, he creates imagined spaces between cultures, blending environments in a powerful dialogue. Through evocative symbolism, such as the red heifer, and muted tones, Chimen masterfully conveys the emotional weight of exile while celebrating the resilience and transformation that come with it. His work is both a personal reflection and a universal meditation on belonging, hope, and the strength found in the face of struggle. Click here for the e-Book, on Amazon.
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