Quote unquote

There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist

This delightful series of drawings, titled Quote Unquote, reveal Jim Amaral’s endlessly inventive erotic imagination. In this private dream world, free of value judgment and restrictions, desire flows freely in all its multivalent manifestations. Outlines are drawn with an effortless fluency that emotionally connect the figures as they gaze at each other longingly or playfully reach out to stroke body parts. A pastel palette lends a perverse childlike sweetness and innocence to some scenes whereas boldly colored stripes and grids in others suggest stronger feelings. Physical and psychological metamorphosis is magically assisted via tentative and exploratory touch, at once tender, melancholy and profoundly human.

—Susan L. Aberth, 2017 [Text excerpt] adapted from The Portuguese poet and writer Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) is a favorite of Jim Amaral.