David Cevallos-Díaz (1986) won an award in 2020 from the Centro de Arte Contemporánea de Quito with a small black Saturn-shaped sculpture made from the ashes of his previous works. The jury was intrigued to see what he might create after having burned his entire production. During the pandemic, in 2021, he experimented with psychedelics in the context of shamanic ceremonies in the Andes and the Amazon—such as yopo, kambo, DMT, xanga, bufo, ayahuasca, mescaline, mushrooms, and Salvia divinorum—which led him to what he describes as a “spiritual emergency.” He then spent three years in residencies in São Paulo, at institutions such as Pivô (2022), FAAP (2023), and Ybytu (2024). After this period of intense material work, he grew tired of producing with his hands and began to desire a shift toward the word.

Upon returning to Ecuador in 2024, he embarked on a “great crusade for peace in Ecuador,” traveling across the country with a large, white, smooth, and perfectly shaped one-meter-tall sculpture representing an egg. He is currently creating his own publishing house, Kiosko, to publish works that, after many years, have found their outlet through the magazine format. In addition, he is developing a project to offer artistic residency experiences in a special place in the Ecuadorian highlands—a farm with five centuries of history, from pre-Columbian times to the present day.

The pieces contained in Coprólitos do Brasil (2024) are part of the works created by Cevallos-Díaz during the three years he spent in Brazil—at Pivô (2022), FAAP (2023), and Ybytu (2024)—,which were left behind in two boxes. In the artist’s words, “The boxes are like a great secret, a treasure of what I made during my stay in Brazil.”