| I have had the pleasure of watching Amy grow and excel as an artist during our undergraduate years at Eastern Mennonite University. As a literature major and self-proclaimed bibliophile, I can't suppress the urge to liken Amy's art to the world of literature and good books. Amy does with her paintbrush what any great author does with their pen; she creates a world upon her canvas, wholly contained and complete, absorbing the reader (or in this case the viewer) entirely, drawing them into the strange and original landscape of the painting. At times scientific, at others fantastic and whimsical, and still at others, strikingly realistic, Amy's versatility and originality is clearly evident. Her earthy and naturalistic subjects are reminiscent of the images in Robert Frost's poetry and demonstrate her love of the beauty within the world of nature. However, she counters her nature-driven artwork, with whimsical and sometimes haunting images that seem to belong in an illustration of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The intricacy and subtlety of Amy's creations, combined with her powerful blending of familiar and fantastic images convey a strange intimacy with the viewer that makes her paintings seem as much at home hanging over a familiar mantle, or filling that empty space on the wall, as they would displayed in a high-end gallery. Amy's paintings, like a good book, remain with the viewer long after the first viewing. I think it was Francis Bacon who wrote, "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Amy's paintings are, without a doubt, the kind that must be chewed and digested, and tasted again and again.
Ashley Handrich |