Firm Stride (Paso firme) embodies José Bedia's interest in the religious ceremonies of the Huichol Indians of Mexico. It represents a deer with luminous eyes, a sacred animal that the Huichol believe has healing powers. Above, a pilgrim searches for peyote (a Mexican cactus with hallucinogenic properties). Bedia renders the syncretic beliefs of the Huichol by connecting the deer to a small temple; the structure contains a reliquary with peyote and a Christian symbol, the cross. Born in Cuba, Bedia moved to Mexico in 1991 and to Miami in 1993, where he currently lives. Highly interested in the realm of the spiritual, by the mid-1980s Bedia developed his signature style of long-limbed figures of humans and animals, usually silhouetted against stark horizons.
