Amy Gross
Exhibition: Human Nature | September 19 - October 24th, 2015
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My embroidered and beaded fiber sculptures are my attempt to merge the natural world with my own inner life. They mimic the visible and the invisible, the observed and imagined. Their symbiosis suggests not only what can be seen, but also what cannot: the early alterations of time, the first suggestions of disintegration. I’ve always been attracted and frightened by the poignancy of things that are on the edge of spoiling, or straining to support the excess of their blooms. So my growths’ elements cluster, tangle, cling and climb. They are collaborations of the observed and the engineered, and completely unnatural. No found objects, nothing that used to be alive are used – all are made from craft store yarns and beads and paper. They’re still and silent imitation, fictions frozen in the midst of their imagined transformation. The attempt to control the changes made by time is a purely human conceit. My organisms will not die. I know that my making these objects will not stop the clock, but I still need to hold things still, assert my will. In a time when I am acutely aware of the limits and contradictions of my presence here, my urge to pause feels paramount.
ARTIST BIO:
Amy Gross was born in New York, and received her BFA from the Cooper Union in NYC. After attending the Skowhegan School in Maine, she established Color Box Studio, Inc., and Amy Designs, Inc., companies specializing in textile, surface, and children’s product design. In 2006, Gross received a grant from the South Florida Cultural Consortium. Her fiber sculpture is represented by Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville, NC, and Watson MacRae Gallery in Sanibel, FL. Selected exhibits include the Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles, The Minnesota Museum of Art, the Racine Art Museum, the Rockland Center for the Arts, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Target Gallery, and a two person exhibit at Artspace Raleigh. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has appeared in Fiber Arts Magazine, Fiber Art Now, American Craft Magazine, HESA Inprint, The Washington Post, and on KnightArts.com.
My embroidered and beaded fiber sculptures are my attempt to merge the natural world with my own inner life. They mimic the visible and the invisible, the observed and imagined. Their symbiosis suggests not only what can be seen, but also what cannot: the early alterations of time, the first suggestions of disintegration. I’ve always been attracted and frightened by the poignancy of things that are on the edge of spoiling, or straining to support the excess of their blooms. So my growths’ elements cluster, tangle, cling and climb. They are collaborations of the observed and the engineered, and completely unnatural. No found objects, nothing that used to be alive are used – all are made from craft store yarns and beads and paper. They’re still and silent imitation, fictions frozen in the midst of their imagined transformation. The attempt to control the changes made by time is a purely human conceit. My organisms will not die. I know that my making these objects will not stop the clock, but I still need to hold things still, assert my will. In a time when I am acutely aware of the limits and contradictions of my presence here, my urge to pause feels paramount.
ARTIST BIO:
Amy Gross was born in New York, and received her BFA from the Cooper Union in NYC. After attending the Skowhegan School in Maine, she established Color Box Studio, Inc., and Amy Designs, Inc., companies specializing in textile, surface, and children’s product design. In 2006, Gross received a grant from the South Florida Cultural Consortium. Her fiber sculpture is represented by Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville, NC, and Watson MacRae Gallery in Sanibel, FL. Selected exhibits include the Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles, The Minnesota Museum of Art, the Racine Art Museum, the Rockland Center for the Arts, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Target Gallery, and a two person exhibit at Artspace Raleigh. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has appeared in Fiber Arts Magazine, Fiber Art Now, American Craft Magazine, HESA Inprint, The Washington Post, and on KnightArts.com.