“I like to imagine potential explanations for the phenomena and mysteries of the world around me. How would I explain the formation of life if I didn’t know about sexual reproduction? How would I understand storms if I knew nothing about meteorology? If I could create a mythology to explain the seemingly unexplainable, what would that be? Myths are operatic in scope, but also extremely intimate in the personal ways we understand them and apply their meanings to our lives, in addition to which, they are boiling over with imagery. Drawing inspiration from different world mythologies combined with a lifelong love of history, medieval art, and theater, I use painting and collage to explore my homemade myths.
Over the last two years, I have moved from drawing and textiles to painting on unprimed canvas, I layer acrylic paint with collaged painted muslin. The raw canvas allows the colors to bleed into one another, not unlike watercolor, and the collage of painted muslin provides both depth and a hard edge. The combination enables me to tell a story that is both unclear and in focus.”
-Amanda Kate Walker