M ost artists aged 92 aren’t still producing works. Few are having exhibitions. And the majority certainly aren’t confident doing interviews via a computer screen.
But Olga de Amaral isn’t like most nonagenarians. Talking to me on Zoom from her daughter’s office in Bogota, the Colombian seems as vibrant as the artworks she creates. With her white hair pulled back into a chic bun, her body draped in an elegant blue jacket, and her eyes glittering behind giant black round spectacles, she’s the Iris Apfel of the South American artworld.
Who she is — and what her art represents — she wants to make clear to me immediately. For a start, she says, she doesn’t really care what people think of her. And second, the reason she works is not to produce items for exhibitions or sales (including Sotheby’s, where this year she sold a work for almost $700,000).
Creating pieces from various fibres — whether that’s linen and cotton or strands of horsehair, which she then knots, weaves, knits, sculpts and sometimes coats with gesso, paint or gold — is part of who she is. It’s what she has done since she was a child. If she doesn’t produce art during her waking hours, she doesn’t feel alive.
.
