Olga De Amaral
Biography
Olga de Amaral (b. 1932, Bogotá, Colombia) is a pioneering Colombian textile and visual artist whose practice blurs the boundaries between craft and fine art. She studied Architectural Drafting at the Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca before moving to the United States in 1952 to study textiles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. After periods living in Barcelona and Paris, Amaral returned to Bogotá, where she continues to live and work. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has been celebrated for her contributions to fiber art, representing Colombia at the Venice Biennale in 1986 and receiving major survey exhibitions, including at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá (1993).
Amaral’s work fuses traditional weaving techniques with painterly and sculptural approaches, creating tactile fields of color and light often enhanced with gold and silver leaf. Deeply inspired by pre-Columbian symbolism, Japanese kintsugi, and the meditative qualities of medieval art, her woven forms evoke both ancient rituals and modern abstraction. Her celebrated series such as Fragmentos Completos and Alquimia explore themes of material transformation, spirituality, and cultural memory.
Her work has been exhibited widely, including early shows at MoMA New York (Wall Hangings, 1969) and the Museum of Arts and Design (Woven Walls, 1970), and is held in prestigious collections like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate, and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Solid Gold at the Brooklyn Museum (2024–2025), a major retrospective at Fondation Cartier, Paris (2024–2025), and participation in the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). Through her groundbreaking approach to fiber, Olga de Amaral has redefined textile art on the global stage, bridging modernism with Colombia’s rich cultural heritage.
