* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
For about the last eight years, I’ve been experiencing a sporadically recurring dream about the end of the world. Animals stampeding and buildings falling into dust around me, I wake up in a panic and with a heavy sense of inevitability. Although I’m not trying to recreate this dream in my work, I think that like my dream, my paintings reflect my view of the nervous state of affairs the world seems to be in.
Inspired by natural and unnatural disasters, personal fiascoes and the never ending stream of bad news coming in from the media, a relentless mob of curious plant-like creatures and other disasters have swarmed over the painted landscapes, threatening the creatures and life within. Like us, the creatures in my work stumble through the best they can; given their circumstances. Acting out of vulnerability they try to create security but sometimes, like us, end up kicking their own asses. I am fascinated by the resilience of life. Every disaster is followed by rebirth, where we hike up our boots, duct tape our lives back together and try to cobble together a ‘plan b” out of what remains.
My paintings document my love of both the urban landscape, and small twisted creatures.
"Amy’s cityscapes are both playful and tragic, and look like some surreal stage set for a contemporary take on a Charles Dickens’s play. You can’t help moving your eyes up and around the walkways and strands that bind and hold the buildings and shelters together. The strong graphic elements and intense detail give these teetering structures a compelling tactile quality, a visual labyrinth for the eye to get pleasantly lost in."
