Transience: New Work by Amy Sands
Curated by Dr Megan Arney Johnston
November 4 - December 11, 2024
Concordia St Paul University Gallery is thrilled to host an exhibition of new work by Amy Sands. A sublime and poignant exhibition, Sands new work reflects her ongoing interest in nature, light, and shadow using a variety of mediums. For Concordia, Sands has created large-scale as well as intimate and delicate works including video projection, installation, and digital prints.
Nature is an important foundation in Sands’ practice and often evokes identity. The theme of nature are not literal, but rather abstracted. In some cases, the artworks come from a place of seclusion and loss, with documentation of a place and time reflected in the intimacy and subtlety. And patterns become embedded in the work as human experiences and memory.
The curatorial intension is to allow the artworks to live in the gallery with space and light from a variety of sources. Gallery lights are diffused and natural light is highlighted. Curator Arney-Johnston elucidates, “I wanted to create a space that embodies the artistic process and intensions. Sands works have visually and physically have delicate and sophisticated nuanced weight, which allows for an ethereal feel and a slowing down of the viewing process. We might wonder: What is this made of? Is it natural or man-made? We can look slowly and deeply at the artworks in this exhibition.”
Additionally, light and shadow play an important role in the artwork. Shadows are, for the artist, proof of our own existence. “The interplay of shadow and light is the interplay of life,” Sands explains. Movement is also important in the work, as a symbolic of a presence in the space–perhaps from the viewer or within the work itself. The video is temporal as is the delicacy of the installation and the prints capture a moment of action.
We are grateful to the Art Department and art students at Concordia St Paul University for their ongoing support and assistance in the exhibition-making process.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
This new work embodies investigations into nature. Using light and shadow as a metaphor of our existence, I examine the precarious balance of an ecosystem. The series uses photography, videography, printmaking and installation to explore shadows of natural forms diffused through fabric, leaving the images to seem unsettled and in motion. Nature is reduced to simple shapes and colors revealing only the silhouette of the plant. Differences between species are camouflaged, leaving one to admire the beauty and simplicity of the shadows and finding commonalities between forms.
ARTIST’S BIO
Amy Sands (MFA, Pratt Institute) is a Minneapolis-based artist who has exhibited in solo
and group shows across the world including Prints Tokyo 2012, Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum; the International Printmaking Biennial of Douro, Portugal; and the
International Biennial Print Exhibit: 2020 R.O.C. at The National Taiwan Museum of Fine
Arts. Her work has been internationally recognized with numerous awards including
First Prize ~ Mini Print III International Cantabria/Impact 10 in Santander, Spain; Juror’s
Choice Award ~ Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition 2017, Tokushima,
Japan.
Sands was a 2022 McKnight Printmaking Fellow at Highpoint Center for Printmaking
with a solo exhibition in spring, 2023. She has received many notable grants including a
2022 Creative Support for Individuals MN State Arts Board grant, a 2020 MN State Arts
Board Artist Initiative Grant, a 2019 Springboard for the Arts Art in the Public Realm
grant, and a 2018 Springboard for the Arts Bottineau Boulevard grant. Her work is
represented at Muriel Guépin Gallery in New York City, Base Gallery, in Tokyo, Japan
and Cura Contemporary in Morgan Hill, CA. She maintains a studio in the Twin Cities
area and is an Associate Professor of Studio Arts and Department Chair, Fine Arts at
Metropolitan State University, St Paul, MN.
Her work belongs in the permanent collections of the Osterøy Museum (Lonevåg,
Norway); The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan, R.O.C.); Faro Cabo Mayor
Art Center (Santander, Spain); Biblioteca (Douro, Portugal); New York Public Library
(NY, NY); Montefiore Hospital (NY, NY); Pratt Institute (NY, NY); Metropolitan State
University (St Paul, MN), Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY); Buena Vista
University (Storm Lake, IA), Central Lakes College (Brainerd, MN) as well as many
private parties.
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