Indigenous Portrait

With delicate precision and cultural reverence, Indigenous Portrait by Jose Luis Prato Hilgert captures a powerful image of identity, dignity, and rootedness. Created entirely through the art of pyrography—an ancient technique of burning designs onto a surface—this portrait features a young girl marked with tribal face paint, holding a parrot in her hand. The wood grain serves as both canvas and collaborator, lending warmth and texture that deepens the emotional weight of the scene. The figure’s direct gaze and poised expression are rendered in meticulous linework, with every strand of hair, feather, and facial mark carefully scorched into the wood’s surface. The parrot, a symbol of connection to nature and tradition, reinforces the portrait’s intimate link to the Amazonian world. Framed simply to let the work breathe, this piece offers both serenity and cultural storytelling.