Invasive Species
The 2024 Presidential election has been a hammer blow to my understanding of the country I live in and the people I live with. I thought I was cynical. I thought I understood the dark undercurrent of the American dream. I was so unbelievably wrong. There was still enough optimistic naiveite to be swept away, leaving disillusionment, rage, and despair.
This most recent body of work is an ongoing effort to understand “The American Dream”, the myth of “American Exceptionalism”, and to examine how I came to believe what I believe about my country and my family legacy. In short, to try and understand the stories disguised as history.
These collaged paintings are not meant to be an historically accurate account, but rather, an emotional reaction to what feels like a lifetime of spoonfed lies. In Happy Trails, I look at my own family history of settlement in 19th century Texas. In Forefathers, I question the narrative that our founding fathers were benevolent freedom fighters. In all my work, I am influenced by growing up in Texas, by a lifelong love of history and medieval art, as well as 30 years working in theatre. I use untreated canvas on which I collage, paint, and stitch. One very important difference from my earlier work is I do not allow myself the use of a pencil: no drawing, no sketching. The scissors are the pencil. I make a lot of mistakes, and I have a big pile of discarded scraps that get incorporated into other pieces.
Artist Statement
I imagine potential explanations for the phenomena and mysteries of the world around me. How would I explain the formation of life if I didn’t know about sexual reproduction? How would I understand storms if I knew nothing about meteorology? If I could create a mythology to explain the seemingly unexplainable, what would that be? Myths are operatic in scope, but also extremely intimate in the personal ways we understand them and apply their meanings to our lives, in addition to which, they are boiling over with imagery. Drawing inspiration from different world mythologies combined with a lifelong love of history, medieval art, and theater, I use painting and collage to explore the world around me.
Over the last year, I have moved from drawing and textiles to painting on unprimed canvas, I layer acrylic paint with collaged painted muslin. The raw canvas allows the colors to bleed into one another, not unlike watercolor, and the collage of painted muslin provides both depth and a hard edge. The combination allows me to tell a story that is both unclear and in focus.
About
Amanda was born in beautiful San Antonio, TX in 1975, and grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, TX. She started out wanting to be a studio artist, but decided in 1996 to focus on designing costumes for theater. So while at the University of TX at Austin she changed from a BFA in studio art to a BA in Theater and Dance. In 2000, Amanda moved to NYC to design costumes professionally, and in 2001 began the MFA stage design program at the Yale School of Drama with a concentration in costume design, graduating in 2004. Now she does both studio art and costume design. She is a member of CAMP Gallery. Currently, Amanda lives in New Haven, CT with her husband.
To Contact Amanda, please write to amandakatewalker75@gmail.com