There’s nothing predictable about Amadour. The multidisciplinary artist who goes by a mononym and they/them pronouns flat-out refuses to be cubbyholed. Abstract painter, historian and storyteller, singer-songwriter, bluesy piano lounge performer, this Los Angeles-based, Reno-bred artist confidently treads the upscale galleries and nightclubs of New York, Miami, London and Tokyo.
Their music echoes the haunting emptiness of Nevada’s high desert and Hollywood’s ersatz representations of the Old West.
Their paintings—in a style called “geometric abstraction”—celebrate pure architectural form. With the California Incline series (opens in new window) , Amadour has lovingly deconstructed the Santa Monica ramp (opens in new window) connecting Ocean Avenue to Pacific Coast Highway. Another series inspired by Hollywood searchlights is underway, along with a new suite of work centered on the historic Mapes Hotel (opens in new window) , a Reno waterfront landmark that was demolished in 2000. (Amadour remembers watching the implosion as a 5-year-old.)
Lately they’ve been experimenting with gold and silver leafing, symbolically mining the history of the Golden State and the Silver State.
“There would be no Reno if there wasn’t a California gold rush or a silver rush in Nevada,” says the 29-year-old artist, who is very purposefully reconnecting with their Nevadan roots. “My goal is to breathe life into these histories through song and painting.”
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Amadour was born in Sparks, Nevada, the child of working-class immigrants from Colombia and Mexico City. Passionate about drawing and music from an early age, Amadour was bullied and dropped out of high school at 15. They left Reno to live with an older brother in Sausalito, where they continued their education independently at the public library. An 8-mile run across the Golden Gate Bridge would take them into San Francisco every day. (“I come from a running family,” Amadour explains. Their uncle Domingo Tibaduiza (opens in new window) is a world-famous Olympian). Returning by ferry at night, Amadour had a steady gig playing jazz piano in a Caledonia Street café, where they befriended a Bohemian set of musicians and artists. A recording contract later took Amadour to Miami. Then at 18, they decided to start fresh in Santa Monica, with the idea of re-enacting the college experience of actor James Dean. Amadour’s fascination with the movie star sprang from days spent at the public library devouring books on the golden age of Hollywood.
Like the film legend, Amadour enrolled at Santa Monica College. In hindsight, it was a genius move. “My time at SMC was transformative and foundational to everything I’ve accomplished,” Amadour says.
Career counselor Jenna Gausman gets the credit for pushing Amadour to switch from the safety of an accounting major to wholeheartedly embracing art—“a life-changing decision.”
Accepted into SMC’s selective Art Mentor Program (opens in new window) , Amadour received “invaluable guidance” from department faculty, including the late professor Ronn Davis, who “helped me understand the art world and refine my practice.” College leaders Nancy Grass and Dr. Kathryn Jeffery also mentored Amadour, whose art now hangs in the superintendent/president’s office and in the offices of The Broad Stage, where Amadour once worked as an usher.
Other peak Corsair experiences included jamming with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer at a homecoming game, and discovering gender studies in a course taught by Delphine Broccard.
“I didn’t know I was non-binary and queer prior to SMC,” Amadour says. “I mean, I always knew—but I didn’t know how to put it into words. Now I can articulate it. That was huge for me. And it’s something that still affects me every single day. I see sexuality and gender as fluid and beautiful.”
These ideas and experiences continue to inform Amadour’s complex creative vision and identity.
“Amadour’s art questions the conventions of representation and traditional categories of art-making,” says art history professor Nathaniel Donahue. “They use materials in novel and innovative ways. Liminal spaces emerge from the elision of binaries, creating an expressive and impressive aesthetic fluidity.”
In 2016, Amadour won a full-ride scholarship from the John Baldessari Family Foundation to attend the transfer school of their choice. Eighteen colleges made admissions offers, but Amadour only had eyes for UCLA.
That’s where James Dean had gone, after all. It’s also home to one of the nation’s top fine art programs.
Amadour took the Westwood campus by storm. “My second quarter at UCLA, I designed a dress for the Grammys red carpet,” Amadour says. After it was featured in the New York Times and blasted across the Grammy Awards Snapchat, Amadour became the “big fish” of UCLA’s art department. A front-page story in the Daily Bruin (opens in new window) cemented their rising-star status.
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Since graduating in 2018 with double majors in studio art and art history, Amadour has continued to build momentum.
Last year alone, they participated in four group exhibitions with high-profile artist like Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jose Dávila, and Stefan Brüggemann in Dallas, New York, and Monterey, Mexico. A fifth exhibition in Tokyo’s elite Kotaro Nukaga Gallery was sold-out.
Music is an integral part of Amadour’s artistic practice, and the past two years have pulled their visual and auditory explorations even closer.
“Echolocation,” Amadour’s 2023 solo exhibition in Los Angeles coincided with the worldwide streaming release of their debut EP album, Western Movie Dream. Each canvas was named after a lyric from the album, and Amadour gave live piano performances in the gallery through the show’s run. The project received lavish praise from critics. “A sort of retro lush, stylized and earnest sound with the softness of the cocktail bar and the wit of a literature salon” is how Artillery Magazine’s critic Shana Nys Dambrot described the effect.
Now Amadour’s second EP project is underway. Probing the intersection of race, queerness and entertainment, I Was Born in the Silver and I Died There Too is a love letter to Nevada and an excavation of its forgotten past. Collaborating with orchestral arrangers in Norway, Amadour is creating a big band-inspired retrospective on historic performances by Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald at the now-demolished Mapes Hotel in Reno, as well as more obscure performances by Liberace at the Sparks Nugget.
“Amadour is not just an artist,” writes journalist Emily Hess in a feature for the Nevada Sagebrush (opens in new window) . “They are an archivist, a historian and a storyteller. Their work acts as a bridge between past and present, between personal and collective memory.”
Last month, Amadour was back in Reno, giving a distinguished artist lecture and jurying the MFA scholarship awards at the University of Nevada-Reno. A 2026 solo exhibition is scheduled at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, where Amadour earned a GED and now returns as an international artist.
The sense of endless possibilities and creative freedom is intoxicating.
“Some weeks I’m completely devoted to the visual, and I’ll work 60 or 80 hours on just that,” Amadour says. “Other times, I feel like being at the piano all day. But I’m always producing. That’s the constant.”
“And I’m so happy,” they add. “I don’t come from wealth, but I come from abundance. I give what I have—my creativity, my time, my story. It’s here to share. I owe much to Santa Monica College for allowing me the space to grow initially. I would have never known that without SMC.”
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Video recording link: https://www.amadour.com/music (opens in new window)
SMC in Focus Volume XI, Issue 2
Mind Over Injury
Santa Monica College supports adults navigating acquired brain injury to pursue their personal and academic goals. Read Article
Power of Community
As wildfires ravaged Southern California, Santa Monica College emerged as a lifeline of compassion and action to serve those affected. Read Article
What We Can Do About Climate Chaos
We caught up with California climate scientist and SMC emeritus professor Bill Selby to drill down on what happened weather-wise in January, and to search for actionable takeaways around Earth Week. Read Article
Amadour: Painter, Pianist, Troubadour
There’s nothing predictable about Amadour. The multidisciplinary artist who goes by a mononym and they/them pronouns flat-out refuses to be cubbyholed. Read Article
Bragging Rights
SMC Fashion students give used denim new life. PPI co-director named Senate District 24 Woman of the Year. Police Chief wins a statewide award. Read Article
Climate Change Agent
For Lisa Collins, climatizing the curriculum is mission-critical. This semester, she made a breakthrough with the rollout of Geology 9, “Climate Change.” Read Article