Amelia Currier

Detroit

Constellation
Print Making
Bio
As a third generation artist, I was raised in a home full of creativity. Summers spent in Northern Michigan served to heighten my sense of the sublime natural world. Eventually my awareness of its potential to reveal our truest selves became the cornerstone of my imagery. I see constant evidence of our attempts to pull our distant primordial roots into present day existence. We instinctively seek solace in the rich, sensory realm of nature. The imagery I create is a visual bridge to this desire for connection and balance.   To further explore the nature/self connection I have traveled to sites that evidence human expression; Neolithic stone circles and Runic inscriptions, Etruscan tombs and the Mitla ruins. I have also studied Hebrew and Japanese characters purely as abstract forms. A few years ago I had the opportunity to see an exhibition of abstract Tantra meditation images. I was swept away by these paintings because they were a manifestation of my vision to bridge the ancient with the modern. In response I am working on a new series, one of which I have included in my art samples. My work contains several elements: gestural drawing, biomorphic forms and chiaroscuro. In art history terms, I draw upon the language of Abstract Expressionism- mark making and referencing the mythic are some of its typical signifiers. In philosophical terms I relate to the bricoleur- a term used by Claude Levi-Strauss to study mythological thought. It is the skill of using whatever materials and concepts are at hand to create something new. A bricoleur only cares about the components becoming the artwork; and understands meaning, not as something immutable, but as something shifting and organic. While I am working, I try to trust my deepest impulses. I feel as if my hand, holding its brush, is a conduit connected to what Carl Jung calls the animus, the truest source of our creative ability. To further tap into that fragile space I have taken up the meditative practice of daily ink gestures know by the Japanese as hitsuzendō. The encaustic monotype is my primary medium. To create a print, images are drawn or painted directly onto a heated palette with pigmented beeswax and then imprinted onto paper. The benefit of this technique is its immediacy, fluidity and ability to create nuanced layers of deep or translucent color. It is my hope that by embracing the alive, intimate and immediate act of painting, I can give the viewer a moment of transience.