23 June 2008

Amy Wheeler

Amy Wheeler (Courtesy of the artist)

(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Art on the Edge: 17 Contemporary American Artists.)

Untitled, 2001. Acrylic and spray paint on canvas. (Courtesy of the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA)

"I call myself an abstract painter despite the fact that many of my images are somewhat representational. I suppose that by calling my work abstract, I want to foreground that PAINT is really important to me. I love paint and the way it works and I want this love to come across in my work. My pieces explore the qualities inherent in paint and strive to put them to good use – by spraying it with an airbrush, by loading up a big brush and stroking it across the canvas, by dripping it, by diluting it with medium so it becomes transparent. At the same time, I want my paintings to be approachable and so try to use paint in simple, efficient, clear ways. I don't ever want my painting to look like a catalogue of paint ‘tricks’. And most importantly, I always want to give equal weight to the image (what I'm depicting with the paint) and the painterliness (how it's painted).

In terms of content, I think of my paintings as being about desire and its frustration. I know those are big, vague words, but I can't really think of a better description. And when I'm working on a painting, it feels pretty simple. My paintings usually depict beautiful, somewhat inaccessible spaces or things. All my paintings somehow depict situations where I literally or figuratively am on the outside looking in."

[Amy Wheeler (b.1968, Los Angeles, California) attended Reed College, Portland, Oregon (BA 1991); continued her studies at the Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin, Germany (1994); and taught English in Japan for a year before deciding to return to art school at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (MFA 1996). After graduation, she moved to California, where she has taught advanced painting classes at the University of California, Irvine, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, California (2003, 2001); Bruning + Zischke, Düsseldorf, Germany (1999); Post, Los Angeles, California (1999); and Bronwyn Keenan, New York City (1999). Her abstract canvases have been included in numerous group exhibitions in venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, Arizona (2002); UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2001); and the Otis Gallery, Los Angeles (2000).]