Samara Paiva (1995) is a visual artist who lives and works in São Paulo. Her artistic practice investigates, through painting, the behavior of the Black body within domestic space and its relationship with intimacy. She explores how this environment allows for humanization and vulnerability—conditions often denied to these bodies—while creating room for contemplation and subjectivity.

Experimenting with material possibilities is central to her practice; by manipulating the plasticity of paint, she distorts and blurs the lines between the concrete and the abstract. For the artist, low contrast, night, and shadows are instruments of freedom.

Under the incandescent light, above the river (2025) is inspired by the journey from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, to her hometown Maués. The artist evokes the sleepless nights of passengers resting in hammocks, with the forest and the Amazon River that guides the boat in the background.