Ossinho da sorte
Graphite on Paper
30 x 21,5 cm
Sidney Carlos do Amaral (São Paulo, São Paulo, 1973 – Idem, 2017) was a Brazilian visual artist and teacher whose extensive artistic production explored the poetic and formal versatility of everyday objects in different languages. In his paintings, Amaral addressed identity issues, broadening the Brazilian artistic debate on the representation of contemporary black men.
In the 1990s, Sidney studied at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios de São Paulo (Laosp), the Pan-American School of Arts, and the ECOS School of Photography. He graduated in Art Education from the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (Faap) in 1998. The following year, he participated in the project orientation and development course at the Brazilian Sculpture Museum (Mube), taught by artist Ana Maria Tavares. Throughout his career, Amaral balanced his artistic production with his work as an art teacher in the public school system. In 2001, he held his first solo exhibition at the São Paulo Cultural Center (CCSP).
Initially, he was interested in creating prosaic objects, displaced from their context and forged in noble materials such as marble, bronze, and porcelain. The series "Balloons in Suspension" (2009) explores semantic and visual paradoxes between the lightness of form and the weight of bronze, as well as the delicacy of polished balloons contrasting with the rusticity of the chainsaw chain that holds them. His themes were often intangible and ephemeral, as seen in "The Girlfriend's Slippers" (2nd version, 2014), where polished bronze sublimates and fixes a daily episode.
Amaral used photographic self-portraits as a basis for creating paintings in which he placed himself among objects that spoke of emotional relationships. These relationships were amplified by narrative drama and an enigmatic and disturbing atmosphere, familiar to metaphysical painting. In "Immolatio" (2009/2014), the self-portrait describes an "auto-immolation," interpreted by the artist as an act of liberation.
During his artistic residency at the Tamarind Institute (USA) in 2013, Amaral worked on racial identity issues through lithography. This work was reminiscent of the records made by traveling artists in Brazil about the enslaved, but he updated this iconography, giving voice to the represented subject. His introspective watercolors contrast with the exteriority of tasks recorded by travelers. In "The Foreigner" (2011), he represents himself on a difficult path towards the art world. In the watercolor "Gargalheira, Who Will Speak for Us?" (2014), Amaral addresses the social oppression mediated by the present.
The recurrence of self-portraits in Sidney Amaral's work, as noted by critic Tadeu Chiarelli, can be understood as a means of social, professional, and identity affirmation. In his works, collective dilemmas are brought into the first person as an expressive strategy, gaining concreteness.
In the polyptych "Discomfort" (2014), Amaral offers a view of the abolition of slavery as resistance, struggle, and uncertainty, contrasting with the imperial allegory in Pedro Américo's "Liberation of the Slaves" (1888). Amaral's austere narrative evokes the allegories of Glauco Rodrigues from the 1960s/70s but departs from the festive delight. The set of paintings portrays revolts, dances, emblematic characters of black culture, and important historical figures such as Francisco José do Nascimento and João Cândido Felisberto.
The construction of paradoxical objects and the continuous investigation of identity and urban relations marked Amaral's production. His drawing, strongly influenced by photographic references, was his main instrument for appropriating images and forms.
