Artist Statement

I always had this tendency: Appropriating objects in order to incorporate them into my daily life. And this practice was growing, mainly after college, reaching a point that made me work intently with metal sculptures—re-appropriations of daily life objects. From common objects, I was interested in discovering the ways in which the relationship we have with a common object is transported to a noble material of the sculpture inside the museological environment, inside the gallery, and so on. This interested me a lot. And since then I began to use brass, particularly polished brass. What interested me most was the noble quality that the metal brings. I don’t create representations of people, but of objects. What I wanted was to create a situation, a kind of environment in metal that gives the idea that everything was perfect, beautiful, and wonderful, polished, but at the same time would create a kind of absence of human being there. Everything is mirrored. It is an object that reflects you. You can see a reflection of yourself there due to the polished surface, but you no longer belong to this field.

I have a series that I’ve been working on called Relações Delicadas [Sensitive Relationships] in which I use household objects to create this conflicting environment, because the home looks like a cozy, protective place. But you find yourself sometimes, because of a lack of dialogue, sometimes even your relationship with things in your home is going to create a certain distance. Even your everyday life is going to create these distances, just like in the case of the work Bem-me-Quer; Mal-me-Quer [Loves Me; Loves Me Not]. I make this relation with the wedding dress, right? I mean, it turned into a boxing bag. Then you turn a wedding dress into a boxing bag, but the guard is down. Most of time these works are self-portraits: The guard of this guy is down; my guard is completely down. There is no necessity in fighting, right? There is no sense in the violence against a wedding dress, or even when I’m going to wash this black sheep. You will go to bathe an animal, in this work I call A Ovelha e o Negro [The Sheep and the Black]—who will bathe whom? It creates a relationship between you and the black sheep. You’re the black sheep or you are the black person that is a black sheep in society.

So these backgrounds, I always make them black because of these issues. You do not have a specific place. It is somewhat timeless.

Sidney Amaral, He wants me, He wants me not (2009-2010) Watercolor and ink on paper (27 ½” x 39”)

Sidney Amaral, My Brazilias Heart (2012) Lithography (25” x 19”)

Sidney Amaral, The sheep and the black (2010-2011) Acrylic on canvas (82.6” x 54”)

Photographed by Henrique Luz, 2013

Sidney Amaral, The Song for Ogum (2012) Five-color lithograph (25” x 19”)