Amanda uses metaphor and the meanings implicit in old, repurposed materials to look at the world, influenced by her German Jewish grandmother and great-grandmother who both collected and made textiles to bolster their adopted identity.   She is drawn to textile processes with an element of chance such as rust printing, eco-dyeing and resist dyeing, and has adapted and invented them to make evocative and ambiguous marks which are then often stitched or degraded.

She examines where the “fabric of society” is stained, damaged and unravelling, and makes attempts at repair and renewal.  Her subject matter includes both political identity and religious belief.   Driven by world events including Brexit and the Russia/Ukraine war, she makes works evoking flags and battle standards questioning simple ideas of identity and nationalism and looking at the human impact of war.   Amanda’s work often includes walls both as an object of beauty, expressing human history through materials and decay, and as barriers, protecting some by keeping others out.   She creates “maps” or networks using flour and water paste, with areas of bleeding and gaps.

Amanda’s research is deep and wide ranging, drawing on everything from The FT to works of theology and literature.  Her key influences include the installations of Annette Messager and Louise Bourgeois, the idea of the artist as destroyer and (re)creator in the works of Cornelia Parker and Elana Herzog, Anselm Kieffer's lifelong investigation of German identity and war through materials, and Mona Hatoum’s exploration of refugee identity and danger through domestic objects.

EDUCATION AND WORK

2022 BA Fine Art, 1^st class, University of Chichester

2015 Distinction in Art Foundation, University of the Creative Arts, Farnham

1980  Diploma in the History of Fine and Decorative Art, V&A Study Centre

1979 BA Hons in English, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University

From 1982 Amanda qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor, working for several major firms and running her own consultancy before joining PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP in 1995 and making partner in 2006, leading teams advising charities, universities and property companies.   She took early retirement in 2013 and returned to making art.

PRESS

Interview with Shine Radio, May 2022
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EXHIBITIONS

Dec 2023  "Alchemy"  ArtSpace Portsmouth (curator, lead artist)

Apr 2023 "New Shoots"  ArtSpace Portsmouth group exhibition (exhibited)

Mar 2023 "This Darker Path"  St Pauls Church, Winchester (curated, exhibited)

Oct 2022 “Platform Graduate Award 2022”, Aspex Portsmouth (finalist, exhibited)

June 2022 “New Graduates: University of Chichester”, Oxmarket Contemporary (exhibited, organised)

May 2022 “Fine Art Degree Show”, St Michaels, Bognor Regis (exhibited)