Amaral

Galerie Aix, Estocolmo, Suecia. 1976.

Amaral

I think of all those painters who painted the naked human body as if it were fully clothed. Life and soul have been concentrated in the face, in movements, but the defenceless and thrilling presence of nakedness itself has been exiled. Those parts of the body which give us so much pleasure and pain, the most sensitive and fragile parts of the body are rejected, concealed in clothing, hidden away or suppressed into the most secret caves and dangerous climate of the subconscious: Taboo!

Amaral has consciously and with courage penetrated these dark caves and black waters. He has given our limbs and vulnerable organs a life of their own. He creates the meeting between skin and fingers; a broken nail challenges a helplessly exposed nipple. Who doesn’t suffer at such a meeting? Who dares to open himself? Who is going to be hurt when we meet each other naked, pitilessly deprived of our defenses: both the outer and the inner. The inner skin and the outer soul. A soft penis penetrates an open ear, just as a philosopher penetrates the mystery of the universe. The body is its own soul and the soul its own body.

So as not to destroy and be destroyed, so as not to devour and be devoured, Amaral started by painting bis forms in a closed soft infan­tile world, the bright universe of limbs and organs with sudden ravines and declivities. From there the artist has moved bis creations out into the world. In maturing they have entered wider existence, that which awaits us outside the totally introvert life of the ego.

—Sun Axelsson, 1976.