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Mayara Ferrão’s Blueprint for Decolonial AI Imagery

February/March 2025
Mayara Ferrão

Brazilian Visual Artist, Mayara Ferrão’s Álbum de Desesquecimentos. Courtesy of the Artist.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER x SEXUALITY

Mayara Ferrão’s Blueprint for Decolonial AI Imagery

No stranger to the tensions underlying the usage of AI in visual art, Mayara Ferrão is at the forefront of a bold artistic revolution, exploring how artists can use AI to challenge the biases entrenched in mainstream imagery. Through her lens, feminist and queer aesthetics dismantle patriarchal narratives, reimagining identity and inclusion in a rapidly digitizing world.
Mayara Ferrão

Brazilian Visual Artist, Mayara Ferrão’s Álbum de Desesquecimentos. Courtesy of the Artist.

THE MINISTRY OF GENDER x SEXUALITY

Mayara Ferrão’s Blueprint for Decolonial AI Imagery

No stranger to the tensions underlying the usage of AI in visual art, Mayara Ferrão is at the forefront of a bold artistic revolution, exploring how artists can use AI to challenge the biases entrenched in mainstream imagery. Through her lens, feminist and queer aesthetics dismantle patriarchal narratives, reimagining identity and inclusion in a rapidly digitizing world.

The lack of diversity in the arts industry has long been an issue for non-white communities. In galleries, museums and libraries, the faces and stories represented are overwhelmingly pale as limestone. This hegemony is so pervasive that we have come to accept it as the norm. However, disruptors like Brazilian artist Mayara Ferrão challenge us to rethink what we know. With a unique vision and a powerful narrative, using image generative tools, Ferrão recreates art through an intersectional lens that deconstructs notions of sexuality, gender, class and race. Through her stunning portraits, she redefines the use of artificial intelligence and amplifies stories that have always existed but were silenced by racism and colonialism. 

As a Black, queer and feminist visual artist, Ferrão leads a movement that challenges and transforms traditional visual culture while reconceptualizing notions of affection within queerness. Works like ‘Lua de Mel’ (Honeymoon) and ‘Album de Esquecimentos’ (Album of Forgettings), combining tenderness, technology and AI, push the boundaries of queer and feminist aesthetics while questioning the algorithms that shape perception and artificial image creation.

In a world where AI often replicates socio-political biases, Ferrão’s work is a vital disruption, one that reckons with these biases. She says enthusiastically: 

I am a visual artist from Salvador, Bahia. I work across various linguistic genres, from illustration to painting and fine arts, as well as photography. I am deeply committed to constructing Black narratives, especially those led by Black and Indigenous women. I think that sums up who I am well. Everything is a majestic universe I propose through my artistic constructions. 

When asked what art means to her, Ferrão responds with palpable passion that it is her way of existing in the world. 

My existence is defined by art. It might sound cliché, but I am a living example of a woman whose life was and continues to be transformed daily by choosing to live and create art. Art is what makes me pulse; it defines me and serves as my means to communicate my desires, fears, anxieties and everything that constitutes me. It occupies a precious place in my life. It is my instrument for existing, navigating the world and, in a way, mobilizing it. 

Ferrão shares the beginning of her artistic journey with a smile, recalling how she was always a very introspective and creative child. The youngest of three siblings, she grew up on the outskirts of Salvador. 

I always loved drawing, painting, inventing characters and creating narratives. This playful storytelling has followed me since childhood and continues with me today. Fortunately, I had sensible parents who understood early on that art was something that made me feel good and helped me express my emotions. Even before I realized it, I was already an artist. I always said, ‘I want to be an artist!’ without understanding that I already was because being an artist is to think, feel and make art. 

Today, Ferrão is finishing her higher education in art, but her passion had been guiding her steps long before that. ‘I built dreams around this artistic practice, and today I work to continue the desire of my inner child: to live from art and be recognised for it.’ When speaking about the central themes of her work—intersectionality, queerness and community—Ferrão explains: 

I am a woman of axé, a woman of faith, and I come from a very large family. Growing up on the outskirts and within a community deeply shaped my sense of collectivity. This collective perspective is central to how I think and position myself in the world. My work is a tool for collective construction; it stems from my desires but also looks towards others. I see so many people in Salvador who, like me, need to see themselves positively and feel represented. 

My work seeks to impact, contribute and transform the existence of others in some way. I believe that through art, we can create a more inclusive and dignified world for everyone. This sense of community is what brought me here and keeps me moving forward. 

With a style balancing poetry and resistance, Ferrão demonstrates how art is not just an individual expression but a bridge to the collective, a mirror of realities that demand to be seen and celebrated. Her work is more than critique; it is a promise of change. 

TROPICAL TRUTH

Her project, Verdade Tropical (Tropical Truth), began as a way for Ferrão to organize her work in illustration and painting. Its evolution reflects a personal and professional journey marked by internal transformations and a deep dive into artistic creation. Ferrão explains: 

I have always drawn and painted, but it took me a long time to see myself as an illustrator. It was a long process to bring this language to a professional level, to recognize myself as someone who constructs narratives and can work and commercialize this type of expression. 

For a long time, her drawings were intimate, centred on feminine narratives that resonated deeply with her. ‘I have always enjoyed exploring this, but there was almost a sense of shame—something many of us Black people feel at some point in our lives. I thought it wasn’t relevant.’ It was within this context that Verdade Tropical was born, initially conceived as an anonymous initiative. ‘I felt I needed to put my work into the world but didn’t want to present it as Mayara Ferrão. It was a way of creating another profile, a new version of myself, to share these illustrations.’ 

The project became a tool to synthesize the tropical narrative, inspired by her life in Salvador, the sea, water, Candomblé, people, smells and colours. 

When I started sharing through Verdade Tropical, I established an intense exchange with the audience because the narratives I presented were positive and empowering for Black people. They are portraits of Black individuals in spaces of contemplation, leisure, exchange and access—as masters of themselves and their truths. It was something so personal to me, yet at the same time collective.’ 

In a flash, the project expanded beyond what Ferrão could have imagined. ‘People talk about me to me without knowing I am the person behind the profile.’ This disconnection between her public and personal identity allowed her to develop a solid artistic identity. Through Verdade Tropical, Ferrão built unexpected connections and worked on projects like book covers, including one for Brazilian professor, anthropologist and activist, Lélia Gonzalez. ‘Verdade Tropical is a safe, solid space and a fertile ground where I can construct narratives that deeply resonate with me.’ 

Salvador, the city where Ferrão lives, is a central influence on her art. ‘I am passionate about Salvador but in a realistic way. Living in Salvador is difficult, especially as a Black person or an artist.’ The duality she describes as ‘luxury and trash’ reflects the city’s complexity. ‘Salvador offers harrowing experiences but also warmth, energy and people who remind me of who I am and where I come from. They inspire my sense of belonging and ancestry. Salvador is a cradle, a place to return to.’ 

The city is also an inexhaustible source of inspiration, especially for those who view it generously. 

The connection to the sea, Afro-Brazilian culture, music and the city’s sensory diversity nourishes my art. Salvador is a city that inspires me as much as it pains me. But these pains transform into art and questions. It is a beautiful chaos. 

Ferrão translates, in colours and strokes, a universe brimming with memories and resistance. Through Verdade Tropical, she creates a space where the personal and the collective meet, revealing narratives of beauty and strength that transcend boundaries and forge a more just and human world. The project also transcends its origins as a personal experiment, evolving into a profound commentary on Salvador’s duality—beauty intertwined with the scars of colonial history. Rooted in the sensory vibrancy of Salvador, Ferrão’s work reclaims Black and queer agency within narratives long shaped by a permanent sense of othering and external colonial gazes. The city’s colonial remnants and Afro-Brazilian cultural richness serve as fertile ground for Ferrão to weave images that both subvert and reconstruct. 

Nonetheless, Verdade Tropical challenges the traditional, often exoticized imagery of both Black women and Salvador by reframing the place and its people as subjects of dignity and joy, not merely survival. Through illustrations of Black individuals immersed in leisure and reflection, Ferrão shifts the focus from tropes of suffering to the reclamation of identity and space. These intimate portraits are inherently collective, fostering a dialogue that celebrates Black lives while critiquing the colonial residues that persist in Salvador’s architecture and culture. 

Ferrão’s decolonial AI art practice exemplifies this subversion by revisiting archival photographs. Historically, these images confined Black women to roles of servitude or sorrow. Through AI imagery, Ferrão reimagines these narratives, envisioning moments of love, connection and defiance in colonial Brazil. By doing so, she creates a new visual language that resists algorithms’ biases and centres Black queer lives as spaces of beauty and resilience. Verdade Tropical synthesizes Ferrão’s personal, historical and technological explorations, making her work a blueprint for decolonial AI imagery—one that celebrates the infinite beauty of Black stories while dismantling the frameworks that once silenced them. 

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SALVADOR: A CITY BREATHING AFROCENTRISM, CULTURE AND ANCESTRALITY

Ultimately, this same passion for Salvador and her ancestry led Ferrão to see artificial intelligence not just as a creative tool but as a portal to revisiting history and projecting a future where love, resistance and beauty gain new narratives. Her work, deeply rooted in the duality of pain and the strength of her ancestry, seeks to rewrite the images and memories often captured solely through the lens of suffering. Ferrão confesses: 

I have never been a great enthusiast or scholar of artificial intelligence. I have always liked to create things very manually, very authentically, but being an independent artist in Salvador brings limitations that constantly challenge me. Interacting with artificial intelligence emerged as an extension of my creative process, allowing me to conceive images and references that, for now, are beyond my material reach. 

Salvador, her hometown, is described by Ferrão as a place overflowing with colonial history. ‘It is impossible to walk the streets without feeling the weight of the past, without noticing how colonial remnants shape our views and bodies to this day.’ As one of the most profound legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and the first designated capital of Brazil, Salvador, located in Bahia, radiates Afrocentrism, a vibrant culture and a deep, unyielding connection to ancestry. This identity reflects the city’s status as home to the largest Black population in the world outside of Africa. Salvador brims with cultural richness and serves as the epicentre of Afro-Brazilian heritage, a place where history and identity intertwine. 

Even today, the city boasts an array of well-preserved, colourful colonial buildings that rise like monuments, speaking directly to our souls while allowing our minds to wander through the labyrinth of histories they hold. These structures whisper tales of survival, resistance and resilience, evoking the intricate realities endured by generations past. The remnants of Salvador’s diverse history resonate within its historic centre, where its physical landmarks and cultural traditions serve as a vivid gateway to the past. 

From 1549 to 1763, Salvador stood as the first capital of Brazil under Portuguese rule. During this period, the city’s growth surged, fuelled by its strategic role as a hub for the commercialization of sugar, a commodity highly coveted in Europe. However, this burgeoning prosperity came at an unfathomable cost. In less than a decade, Salvador became the first slave market in the Americas, serving as the arrival point for countless enslaved Africans who were forcibly trafficked to labour on plantations. 

Salvador is, in every sense, the cradle of African culture in Brazil. It is a sacred space of remembrance, imbued with the weight of history and the indomitable spirit of liberation. The city bears witness to some of the most emblematic struggles for freedom and resistance in Brazilian history, such as the Revolta dos Malês (The Malê Rebellion) and the Revolta dos Búzios, also known as the Revolt of the Alfaiates (Tailors’ Revolt). These uprisings signalled the early stirrings of the movement for Brazil’s independence, embodying the determination of enslaved and marginalized peoples in resisting oppression. 

In this rich and layered context, Salvador not only shapes the culture and collective memory of a nation but also profoundly moulds the individuals who call it home. For Ferrão, the city’s unique ambience, charged with history and ancestral energy, became a wellspring of inspiration, shaping her art and her very being. Salvador stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of African heritage in Brazil, a vibrant reminder of the struggles, triumphs and unbreakable spirit of its people.

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A PERSPECTIVE ON ART, ANCESTRY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Fascinated by old photographs, Ferrão recounts how these images carry both impressive technical beauty and profound discomfort. ‘It is painful to see how Black and Indigenous women were portrayed—gazes overflowing with sadness, bodies positioned in narratives of subservience.’ The artist began experimenting with artificial intelligence intuitively, using the technology to create images that challenged these oppressive narratives. ‘It was a visceral impact. For the first time, I was able to envision possibilities of representing love and connection between Black and Indigenous women during the colonial period—something history rarely allows us to imagine.’ 

She emphasizes that her work does not seek to erase trauma or suffering but to expand the collective imagination. 

Slavery is a topic with so many layers that we often forget to think about what it was like to love in that era. People loved, desired and dreamed, even under unimaginable conditions. I want to explore that space—what it means to exist beyond the whip, the senzala, the trauma. 

For Ferrão, artificial intelligence is more than a tool: it is a vehicle for rescue and reconstruction. 

I want to create images that give Black and Indigenous people references of ancestry that are not just about pain. I want us to look at the past and imagine a future where love, motherhood and beauty are celebrated. It is about rewriting history with sweetness and resistance. 

She also reflects on the ethical issues surrounding the use of technology. 

AI is predominantly in the hands of white people, often used for purposes that fail to represent us or even erase us. So why shouldn’t I, a Black woman from Salvador, appropriate this tool to create narratives that empower us? It is a gesture of reclamation and healing—to look at ourselves and finally see ourselves with dignity and strength. 

Ferrão reaffirms with a hopeful and combative vision: 

With this work, I want to remind people that we deserve to live our lives, document our happiness and rebuild our archives. It is about blurring the sad images that imprison us, and dreaming of a future that is, in truth, already here. Because our history is made of struggle but also infinite beauty. And that will never be denied to us again. 

In reimagining Black life—Brazilian, queer and abundant—Ferrão’s praxis echoes what Black scholars and poets like Kevin Quashie, Audre Lorde, bell hooks and Lélia Gonzalez articulate as Black aliveness. This aliveness is not merely survival; it is a reclamation of joy, a refusal to be defined by violence, and an insistence on crafting futures where thriving is central. It is an ethos of being that celebrates the intimacy of kinship, the courage to love without fear, and the reweaving of historical and cultural threads that have too often been frayed. Through her work, Ferrão invites us into a world where Blackness blooms freely, uncontained and radiant, where sorrow does not overshadow resilience and where beauty—a beauty that is both quiet and unapologetically loud—remains a form of resistance, as profound as it is poetic. 

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IN THE WATERS OF MEMORY

Regarding the power of nature in her art, water is more than a recurring element in Ferrão’s work; it is a symbol of connection, renewal and care. Growing up between Salvador and Gameleira Island, the sea has always been a constant presence in her life, both as a silent companion and as a space of leisure and spirituality. She explains: 

Salvador is this place where the sea is everywhere. I grew up on Gameleira Island, a deeply tropical place. I always lived immersed in this atmosphere, with the sea as a friend, often a companion. Later, when I delved into Candomblé and African-rooted religions, the sea took on another meaning: it became a place that consoles but also carries memories of Atlantic traumas. I once wrote that the sea haunts us because it has drowned us so much, but it also welcomes us, bringing Iemanjá, so present in my works. 

Thus, the waters, both salty and fresh, inevitably dialogue with her ancestry. ‘I have a very strong connection with the forest, waterfalls and freshwaters, which bring spiritual and symbolic connection with the Orixás,’ she says. ‘Nature is a living Orixá. We do not need institutions to connect with it. Water is mother. It is renewal, and this relationship is deeply present in my work.’ 

This intimacy with nature is not only an aesthetic inspiration but a reflection of her own life and spirituality. Ferrão values the transformative power of simplicity: ‘Lying on the beach, sunbathing, entering the sea, asking Iemanjá for a blessing… It is something democratic, accessible. It costs nothing, yet the energetic return is immense. That fascinates me.’ Her works, deeply personal, ultimately become a representation of who she is and what she believes. ‘I cannot separate myself from my art. It arises from my experiences, from what moves through me, and that allows the audience to know me, even without my presence. Being a political person is to be in constant dialogue with my work; it accompanies me and I accompany it.’ 

The future, for Ferrão, is a field of expanding possibilities. Among her dreams is the realization of a short film inspired by the narratives she explores in her works. She explains: 

The script is in development. But I want to build a romance set in the colonial period because I feel that historical translations do not do us justice. Either they focus only on pain or fail to capture the fullness of what we lived in that context. I want to go farther. Even under adverse conditions, life was immense. I want to reclaim our stories, narratives and landscapes, showing that we exist beyond pain. 

Ferrão invites us to dive into the waters of memory and resistance, with a voice that echoes renewal, struggle and ancestry. In doing so, she traces paths for us to view the world with new eyes—decolonized and full of possibilities. Her visuals show us affection, love and care between queer Black women in a unique way that we know existed but seemed unfathomable until now. Her work is revolutionary and a reminder that stories only exist when we give them space, removing oppression and pain from their framing. By leveraging AI imagery, Ferrão doesn’t simply appropriate its tools; she reshapes them, using the technology as an act of defiance and imagination. Rather than operating within pre-existing systems, she radically reimagines AI as a vessel for Black and Indigenous futures—futures that are unshackled from colonial frameworks and rooted in ancestral wisdom. 

Through this lens, Ferrão’s AI-driven creations become acts of reclamation and renewal, allowing marginalized narratives to emerge as both deeply personal and profoundly universal. Black lesbian stories, historically sidelined, are now brought to the forefront, woven with the strength, joy and resilience of generations past and present. Ferrão’s work challenges us to envision a world where technology serves liberation, enabling us to reconnect with the richness of our histories while creating spaces for radical futures filled with justice, care and boundless possibility⎈

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