Love, letters and doodles (plus the tango)
The spotlight falls on the US-born, Bogotá-based artist Jim Amaral at Frieze Masters whose fantastical drawings on show at LAMB gallery explore the body, desire, and the subconscious. The fair presentation centres on Invisible Flowers (1979–80)—ink and watercolour drawings that “merge human reproductive anatomy with imaginary plants”, says the gallery. Amaral’s back story is explored meanwhile in a parallel show at LAMB’s gallery in Mayfair (Jim Amaral: A Study of Five Decades, until 21 November). Jim and his wife Olga met as students at Cranbrook in Michigan around 1954 when their romance apparently began “over a tango”. When she returned to Colombia and he left for naval service in the Philippines, they exchanged letters, doodles, and photographs for two years. The Love Letter drawings feature in the Mayfair show, tracing his works on paper from the 1960s to the 2010s. Oh l’amour.
