Studio Air

Emma Amos, Studio Air, acrylic on linen canvas with African fabric borders, 72″ × 61″, 2003

Emma Amos (b.1938) has always been fascinated with fabric, even to the point of weaving her own painting cloth for a time in the nineteen sixties. Her paintings often incorporate distinctively patterned African fabrics as borders which relate in various ways to the central images. Ms. Amos has said of her own work, "I like that people can read their own meanings into my paintings and that those readings may be quite different from mine." This fascinating and many-layered painting, incorporating a self-portrait, definitely sparks off many possible story lines in the viewer's mind.

Georgia-born and raised, Emma Amos has studied and worked in numerous states and countries, but has been based mainly in New York City since the nineteen sixties.  The artist began teaching at Rutgers University in 1980, receiving tenure in 1992 and continuing to teach there until her retirement from academia  in 2008. She has received many honors and fellowships, including the Pollock-Krasner Grant and a Yaddo Artist Residency. Her most recent honor is the Georgia Museum of Art's 2016 Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award, for "her contribution to visual art in Georgia." Her work is in the collection of that museum as well as many others, including the Library of Congress (USA), the National Gallery of Art (USA)  and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, as well as numerous other public and private collections world-wide. She maintains an active studio practice and is represented by Flomenhaft Gallery in NYC. The artist's beautiful website can be seen here.