Con Licencia (With Permission)

Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions permeate the work of Miami-based José Bedia. Native to Cuba, in 1984 Bedia was initiated as a priest of Palo Mayombe, a religion introduced to the region by slaves from the Congo. Taking its name from the Spanish word for “stick,” Palo is centered on belief in the spiritual power of the Earth and natural objects. To facilitate their rites, practitioners of Palo (Paleros) create consecrated vessels known as Nganga that are filled with such materials as dirt, sticks, and bones, and thought to be inhabited by spirits of the dead.

Bedia illustrates a Palo ritual in the monumental ink drawing Con Licencia, whose title translates to “with permission.” At the center of the composition, a kneeling supplicant pre-sents a machete to the waning moon and requests permission from the creator-god Nsambiampungo—highest deity in the Palo pantheon—to cut down a plant emerging from the ground as an appendage of the personified Earth. Connecting moon, supplicant, and plant is a diagonal axis formed of the words of the Palero’s chant, scripted in a mixture of Spanish language and Kikongo dialect. The symbol rendered directly above the severed plant is known as a firma, or chalk drawing composed of graphic elements like arrows, crosses, and circles to facilitate a specific ritual.