BY SANTIAGO LONDOÑO VÉLEZ In this way Amaral subverts what Linnaeus ( - ) called the “natural system” of classification of plants, but seems to coincide with Camerarius ( - ), who in De sexu plantarum epistle first estab- lished the sexual character of the flowers. is is revealed with elo- quent nudity in his peculiar specimens. However, the morphology of each one is careful to guard well the enigmatic riddle of its own identity: What are these invisible flowers? Vegetative monsters? Hi- eroglyphics whose key has barely been insinuated? In any case, they plant an invitation for the gaze to discover each of the component parts and the subtle way that they are joined in an unbroken continu- ity that can only exist in the imagination and on paper. e Invisible Flowers gave way to a set of drawings in mixed technique on paper or parchment whose titles make literal reference to the geological phenomenon of metamorphism, a set of transfor- mations undergone by rocks as a result of extreme temperatures and pressures, which lead to a change in structure and composition. A typical example of this phenomenon is marble, a mineral that is the result of the metamorphism of limestone. Series such as Metamor- phic Growth - ( ; FIG. 186 ) or Metamorphic Lament for Two ( ) do not refer, however, to a mineral phenomenon but rather to a fan- tastic one related to Kafka’s e metamorphosis . “ C L E A R D A R K ” : T H E Z E R O D E G R E E O F P A I N T I N G During the early eighties, the artist faced experiences of loss that marked him deeply. First, he must leave Paris and return to Colom- bia to run the textile workshop with his wife, which was in a difficult financial situation, and, second, his father died. In his own words, “upon returning to Bogotá... all became clear dark. Not gray, but clear dark. And I started to paint the Mourning Fruits ( - ; FIGS. 69 71 , 73 , 233 and 349 ). ey are very gray and no one wanted to buy them and I did not understand the rejection. It was like getting a root canal...”⁴⁰ ese experiences will be developed through a signif- icant change of thematic and technique. He puts aside drawing, an- atomical hieroglyphs, the symbolic iconography of mythologies and hybridizations of Invisible Flowers and takes to painting very person- al still lifes in an extensive series called Mourning Fruits . roughout the decade this motive will assume different variants with which he explores the pictorial expression of mourning. Although water from acrylic and oil paints reject each other, he forces the two media to coexist, recurring to successive sandings and stacked layers of paint applied on different surfaces. ◀  . . Mourning Fruit № , “”ž‡. Œ‰×•” cm, acrylic and oil on canvas. . Mourning Fruit № , “”ž—. •‰×‰” cm, acrylic and oil on canvas.