about
| Amanda has a BA in Communications from SFU and a diploma in Textile Art from Capilano University. After a career in corporate communications, she chose to go back to school to re-discover her need to make things. There she discovered weaving and has worked with textiles ever since. In her studio practice, material limitations often bump up against the structures and processes she has chosen to work with, creating a tension that sparks a point of interest and pushes her towards her next inquiry. Amanda always begins with formal and informal research into her environment, personal memories, and contemporary culture. Visual explorations of unseen structures such as mapping, repetition, hidden geometries, or patterns are explored through photography, collage and mark making before being executed in dyed, woven or stitched structures. |
artist statement
| I am interested in chance, found patterns and networks. I use the grid inherent in plain weave to mimic and explore these ideas. I let grid lines loosen, curve, disappear and push into the space to create effects that mimic the flow back and forth between whole and disrupted networks. The cloth responds to stimulus such as gravity or a shift in materials or tension. I create weave structures that reference chance connections. Natural materials such as silk, cotton, paper, wool, and horse hair combine with these asymmetrical, random patterns in tactile sculptures. Thinking about human relationships as a network of connections led to my current series of sculptures that explore the concept of disrupted networks. Chance, materiality, and physics determine the shapes and directions of the cloth. The woven and unwoven areas build and release tension. Concept and technique respond to each other. Grounded within the context of craft traditions, my work looks to the future through researching the past. |
