Olga de AMARAL (b. 1932) is considered one of the most important fibre sculpture pioneers to emerge in the late 1960s. Her work is in the collection of most major museums, and she has been exhibited extensively. In 2024, Amaral was included in the Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and her first major retrospective in Europe opened at Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain.

Since the 1960s, Olga de Amaral has pushed the boundaries of textile art by continuously experimenting with a variety of material—such as linen, cotton, horsehair, gesso, gold leaf, and palladium—and employing diverse techniques like weaving, knotting, braiding, and interlacing threads to craft monumental, three-dimensional works. Her work is deeply driven by her exploration of Colombian culture and her own identity and has become an important figure in the development of post-war Latin American abstraction.

In particular Amaral’s gold and silver tapestries evoke sacred spaces, referencing Colombian churches and Byzantine mosaics, and spiritual practices, transforming the tapestries into portals that lead not only to hallowed sites but also to transcendent states of spiritual experience. Initially engaged through sight, the works gradually reach beyond the visual, inviting a deeper connection where acts of looking become acts of feeling and aesthetic devotion.

Olga de Amaral was named “Visionary Artist” by New York’s Museum of Arts and Design in 2005. In 2021, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, dedicated a major exhibition to her entitled To Weave a Rock. A major retrospective of her work was later presented at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, France, which then traveled to the ICA Miami, where it concluded this October 2025.