In Elson Júnior’s hands, the everyday ballpoint pen becomes a tool of protest, reverence, and
reconnection. His bold, intimate lines reveal worlds we often choose not to see. With it, he tells
silenced stories, redraws faces erased by official history, and rebuilds bridges between who
we were, who we are, and what we must protect. Now, his artistic gesture turns to the Amazon
—not as an exotic backdrop, but as sacred land, a living body, ancestral and urgent.
In this special edition of ArtNow Report, dedicated to the forest that beats like the heart of the
planet, Elson presents a series of works honoring Indigenous peoples. Through his drawings,
Indigenous figures emerge with strength and subtlety—not as stereotypes, but as undeniable
presences that demand recognition. These are bodies that carry the rhythm of the forest, the
wisdom of rivers, and the resilience rooted in the earth. These are lines that breathe.
Amid the technological sophistication of the contemporary art world, Elson walks the opposite
path. He chooses the simplest tool—a ballpoint pen—and pulls from it the maximum
expression. The delicacy of his technique contrasts with the weight of the stories it tells. With
overlapping, interwoven, and stubbornly precise lines, he creates images of striking visual
impact and poetic depth. Each line is a memory; each shadow, a story refusing to be erased.
“If my pen could write one word about the Amazon,” Elson says, “it would be Breath.” And that’s
exactly what his work offers: a breath against indifference, a gasp of awareness in times of
deforestation, invasion, and exploitation. His drawings don’t depict the forest as scenery—but
as a living character: complex, pulsing, and alive. The deep green of the canopy, the mirrored
blue of the rivers, the earthy red of roots, and the vibrant colors of Indigenous body paint form,
in his imagination, an ancestral mosaic.
His decision to center Indigenous people in his work is no coincidence. For Elson, the most
urgent story to tell—often the most silenced—is that of those who fight for their land. In
drawing them, he doesn’t mythologize them. He places them where they’ve always belonged:
at the center. The center of the struggle, the forest, the culture, and life itself. In doing so, his art
becomes a political act—restoring dignity to those long pushed to the margins.
Drawing to Protect
Elson Junior