Tamarind Institute Introduces Afro-Brazilian, African American Artists to Lithography

Toyin Odu­tola

Three bina­tional pairs of artists cre­ated lith­o­graphs this sum­mer in the Tamarind Insti­tute work­shop that explore issues such as equal­ity, inclu­sion and iden­tity in Brazil and the United States. Meet the final pair dur­ing the clos­ing recep­tion for “Afro: Black Iden­tity in Amer­ica and Brazil” on Fri­day, Aug. 24, 5:30–7 p.m. at the Tamarind Insti­tute, 2500 Cen­tral Ave. SE. The exhi­bi­tion is also open through Fri­day, Aug. 31, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sid­ney Ama­ral is a painter and sculp­tor from Brazil who finds inspi­ra­tion in ordi­nary objects like flip-flops and scis­sors and repro­duces them, with a twist. His work has been included in exhi­bi­tions at Alameda Lorena and Cen­tral Gale­ria de Arte Con­tem­porânea in Brazil and Cul­turgest in Lis­bon, Portugual.

Toyin Odu­tola was born in Ife, Nige­ria, and moved to the United States as a young child. She received a bachelor’s degree from the Uni­ver­sity of Alabama in Huntsville and Mas­ter of Fine Arts from the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts in San Fran­cisco. She said she’s “totally sold on lith­o­g­ra­phy” after her res­i­dency at Tamarind.

Other artists par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exhi­bi­tion are Brazil­ian artists Rosana Paulino and Tiago Gual­berto and Amer­i­can artists Ali­son Saar and Willie Cole. They cre­ated lith­o­graphs at Tamarind ear­lier this summer.

The exhib­ited works show the artists in their cus­tom­ary media. Ama­ral usu­ally works in water­col­ors and pen­cil. He said lith­o­g­ra­phy is a chal­lenge, but he can read­ily adapt because the process is sim­i­lar to draw­ing. In lith­o­g­ra­phy, the artist draws an image in reverse with a grease pen­cil on a lime­stone slab or alu­minum plate. Tamarind’s mas­ter print­ers then han­dle the com­plex chem­istry involved in print­ing each lithograph.

Odu­tola, who has pri­mar­ily worked in pen, said lith­o­g­ra­phy is bet­ter for get­ting high­lights a cer­tain way and pick­ing up nuances. “It’s more for­giv­ing and allows you to play and exper­i­ment more,” she said.

Odu­tola said the ink draw­ings included in this exhi­bi­tion are from her first time draw­ing males – her broth­ers and a friend. She pre­vi­ously drew mainly self-portraits. They are also the first pieces where she worked with color. “I was intim­i­dated by color,” she said.

Tamarind Insti­tute Direc­tor Mar­jorie Devon said all of Amaral’s work fea­tures him­self in some way. An exhib­ited work, “Como Con­struir Cidades” or “How to Build Cities,” shows the artist knit­ting yarn stream­ing from his eyes and mouth into cocoons bind­ing three fig­ures – also the artist. Ama­ral said the image rep­re­sents “knit­ting together threads of humanity.”

Tamarind Insti­tute, a divi­sion of the Col­lege of Fine Arts at UNM, is a non­profit cen­ter for fine art lith­o­g­ra­phy that trains mas­ter print­ers and houses a pro­fes­sional col­lab­o­ra­tive stu­dio for artists.