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© Amaya Gurpide

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Amaya Gurpide

Old Lyme Connecticut

Artist Statement

Passing through life is a complex and abstract experience. Finding ways to give significant expression to the ineffable depths of life is both necessary and challenging. Images, however, have the potential to articulate the elaborate themes of life with visual complexity. My interest in observing nature is not to reproduce a loyal image of what I see, but to carefully extract some sort of force, a kind of universal intimacy that resides in the ordinary.

This impulse is combined with a strong desire to experiment. Each piece is an enigma to resolve through layers, texture, the desaturation of color, or the combination of materials. It is all part of the narrative, the psychology of the image, and resides in the hope that through some kind of play or alchemy, I might be able to achieve the depth of truth and reconciliation that I long for. 

© Amaya Gurpide

Amaya Gurpide's Portfolio

© Amaya Gurpide

Artist Biography

Having learned her love of art from her father, a painter, Amaya attended the School of Fine Arts of Pamplona in her native Spain. In 1999, she moved to New York City to pursue her studies in figure painting and drawing, studying at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League of New York, and the Grand Central Academy. In 2014, Amaya took part in the creation of the U.S. branch of the Florence Academy of Art in Jersey City, and in 2016 she was recruited as an Adjunct Professor of Anatomy and Drawing by the New York Academy of Art.

With her turn toward drawing, Amaya’s process has refined – forms emerge on warm-toned papers from built up layers of graphite, chalks, gouache, and charcoal, often with the use of brushes to achieve a softer, more painterly effect. Experimentation allows each narrative to cohere and coalesce, and she is connected to her works by the intimacy of this creative act.

In 2020, Amaya was commissioned by Time magazine to create a cover for their “100 Women of the Year” project. She herself has been recognized by the Evelyn Chard Kelley Memorial Scholarship for women painters under 30, the Newington Cropsey Scholarship, and has won numerous notable prizes.

Her works are regularly exhibited in both the United States and abroad and have been included in several significant fine arts publications. Amaya is currently the Co-Artistic Director of the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, along with her husband, Jordan Sokol, in Old Lyme, CT.

amayagurpide.com

@amayagurpide

© Amaya Gurpide

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