Ritual by Fernanda Lavera

This paint is made with acrylics, acrylic, and gas-based sprays, cellulose acetate, butane, titanium, and markers on canvas.

Fernanda Lavera

Ritual

70 x 62 in (177.8 x 157.48 cm)

$35,000

Available

In the ancient world—from Egypt to Mesopotamia—the bull was revered as a sacred creature. On the island of Cyprus, rich with layers of archaeological history, rituals were performed using bull masks made from real skulls, later left behind in sanctuaries as offerings. Terracotta figurines depicting figures wearing bull masks, dating from 750 to 480 BC, have been unearthed from these sacred grounds.

During a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, I was captivated by these terracotta figures—haunting, ceremonial, and oddly familiar. They wore their bull masks like secrets, and in that moment, a new series of paintings began to take shape.

It became four works:
Man with a Bull Mask,
The Ritual,
Bull’s Mask,
The Sanctuary.

A silent homage to ancient rites and the echoes they leave behind.