Jim Amaral (born 3 March 1933) is an American-born Colombian artist known for his drawings and bronze sculptures. Over a career that spans more than half a century, Amaral has also been dedicated to painting, etchings, collages, furniture design, assemblages/objects, and artist’s books. The artist has been widely recognized for his draughtsmanship, the subtlety and refinement of his technique as well as his imaginative and cultured universe. As a constant experimenter, Amaral has developed a unique aesthetics and symbolism and therefore has never belonged to any style or movement in particular. However, his work has been linked, for example, to surrealism and ancient Greece (sculpture). His art is deeply rooted in the psychological realms of the human existence. Amaral has always been focused on the condition of the human being, especially the topic of death and the passing time. "I am only trying to understand the world, to live through my painting. I am trying to understand certain mysteries, such as the energies of life and death, the loneliness of a man (...) I paint what people can reflect upon, so that what stays with the spectator is not only the visual impact".
For the years 2013-2014 he was chosen as the author of the graphic imagery for the VIII Cartagena International Music Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, organised by The Salvi Foundation. His large scale bronze sculptures are located outdoors in different sites in Bogotá, Colombia, such as in the garden of The National Museum and, since 1996, at the entrance to the Bolsa de Valores de Colombia BVC on Carrera Séptima (3 bronze sculptures Women with wheels, 1994). In 2013 the artist published a calendar called Aguas Turbias with a collection of 14 drawings from a series with the same title.
Biography and education
Amaral was born in 1933 in Pleasanton, California, USA. His father was Portuguese and his mother was American of Italian descent. Amaral grew up in a rural environment in Pleasanton and remembers that period as "living in an interior exile". As a teenager he wrote poetry, which has always been his great source of inspiration. And years later it turned out to be vice versa - because of the lyrical aspect of Amaral's sculptures, drawings, oil paintings and graphic works, these have become illustrations for poems by such poets as Edoardo Sanguineti or Armando Rojas Guardia.After two years at the University of Washington, Seattle (1952–53) where he studied, among other subjects, history of art and architecture, Amaral finally decided for a career in the arts at the Stanford University and in 1954 graduated with a title Bachelor of Arts. "When I abandoned United States I realized that art is my only option, the only place where I am not a foreigner". He continued postgraduate studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1954-1955), where he met Colombian visual artist and future wife Olga de Amaral (got married in Colombia in December 1957). Before moving to Bogotá in 1958, Amaral spent two years (1955–57) in the Philippine Islands with the U.S. Navy (obligatory military service). In Bogotá, Amaral started working with a furniture and interior design company. Soon his son was born and Amaral decided to become a full-time artist and began casting bronze sculptures, making collages and abstract drawings. In 1960 his daughter was born. From 1966 to 1967 the Amaral family moved temporarily to New York. In 1967, after coming back to Colombia, Amaral traveled to the US again to teach drawing at the Penland School of the Arts and Crafts in North Carolina. In the same year he also started teaching drawing at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. In the years 1970-1972 the Amaral family traveled around Europe, settling down for a longer period in Paris, where in the fall of 1971, at the Albert Loeb gallery, Amaral showed his work for the first time in Europe. The exhibition brought him great critical acclaim. He traveled to Paris again for longer periods in the years 1974-1975 and 1979-1980. In 1989 Amaral taught drawing at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Currently he lives with his wife in Bogotá and works in Casa Amaral.