Carolina Amaya: The Woman With Technicolor Overalls

Inspired by the electrifying palette of indigenous Latin America, the Colombian visual artist combines textures, perspectives, and angles. She expertly connects empathetic projections and dimensions into a strong narrative of association and relationships. By folding and weaving together emotion and linear iterations, Amaya’s application of monadic moments forms a bold identity on tapestry-like patterns.

What Does Your Mural Represent?

This project allowed me to experiment and create a beautiful large canvas. I wanted people to feel energized. Color is about energy and life is about energy. I look how it affects behavior, so color is a determination. I don’t use green, just juxtapositions of blue, pink, red, and yellow.

How Do You Define Your Art?

My art is a projection of my life, of my past, and the things that occur around me that I might not always be conscious of. Using large format, I explore confrontations of the self and society. This geometry delves into our primary emotions and the absurd.

How Does Your Environment Influence Art?

Some cities have many greyscales in the winter and springtime. It reflects the seriousness in the culture. Layering color on grey forms a “play.” I play in order to find a feeling of home. Adopting a new perspective of home has helped me grow stronger and face my fears.

I use a palette related to indigenous Latino, especially Colombian culture. The environment in Colombia is so bright and energetic; all colors have a home. I use bright high-frequency colors because it projects high-level emotion. The feeling inside a blue room is different from standing in a red room. This difference is the basis of my work. I want to evoke this connection.

What Are You Most Proud Of?

When I first came to Berlin, I stood in front of a white wall in my studio wearing my white overalls for painting. They were spotless. The studio director was disturbed after a few days because my overalls and wall were still white. It was a metaphor for my life then.  I really had no idea what to do at this moment. I cried, experienced so much stress, it felt like a catharsis. But then I just started doing it, because it is my life and I really wanted to create.

I had to break down, go backward. I broke my memory books and did a mental map to understand life: what my next steps were. So, I worked and worked and got my overalls colored, and in the end, I came up with my first installation from over 6000 personal pieces called “From the Inside.” My overalls are like how you see now, colorful.

Do You Believe Artists Have A Responsibility?

Yes, of course! We have important responsibilities in life since we send messages to people. We give them our energy and dimensional energy, we connect these elements. I want to give emotion and send a message.

For example, when I use acrylics I do not use normal water. I use rainwater. I collect water from all over and I put the location and the time of day that I collected it. It is not normal water from a tap. It is special water; it has been cared for. When you use water that you collect from clouds and you mix it with paints, there is another level of energy. There is immediately more character. It brings you to another dimension, beyond the physical, sending a deeper expression.