At the age of 18, Jaider Esbell (1979 – 2021) he left his village to work as an electrician, a job he kept for the next 20 years before leaving to devote himself to his art full-time. He considered his paintings, drawings and conceptual works to be a fusion of art and activism and was inspired by indigenous cosmology and mythology.

Jaider Esbell has been a central figure in the affirmation of contemporary indigenous art in Brazil. In 2016, he won the PIPA prize, one of the most important contemporary art prizes in Brazil.

In 2021, the year of his sudden death, he took part at the Bienal de São Paulo and curated the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “Moquém_Surarî: Contemporary Indigenous Art.” The same year, two of his works were integrated into the Centre Pompidou collection: Carta ao Velho Mundo (2018-2019) and Na Terra Sem Males (2021).In 2022, Jaider Esbell participated in the group exhibition “Histórias Brasileiras” (Brazilian Stories), held at MASP, intending to review the history of Brazil and presenting this narrative through different points of view.In 2022, Jaider Esbell’s works were part of the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani.