New print portfolio is ready!

Hot off the press!

New website and print book are almost done...

This month, on top of a trip back to Minneapolis for the panel talk at the Walker, getting ourselves oriented in our new home in Los Angeles, and setting up my new office, I'm getting down to putting the final touches on my new site and print book.

editing!

I have been working with consultant extraordinaire, Jasmnine DeFoore, on this whole process of revamping my website, logo, and identity. She's helped me see my work with fresh eyes and been a tremendous resource. I also want to recommend Scott Mullenberg, of Mullenberg Designs, who is making, by hand, my beautiful new book and slipcase.

Loving LA so far...

food trucks!

McKnight panel discussions at the Walker Art Center

Myself, and McKnight Fellows from this year and last year took part in a series of panel discussions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Here are videos from these evening's discussions, in full. They run about an hour each. I invite you to get comfy and watch!

Part 1 features Gina Dabrowski, Chuck Avery, Lex Thompson, and Paul Shambroom.

Part 2 features Amy Eckert, Karl Raschke, Monica Haller, and Carrie Thompson.

Dawn Til Dusk opens at Jen Bekman

I am excited and honored to my collage, Double Sunset, included in this great group show at Jen Bekman Gallery, in New York. The show runs June 17- July 30th, 2011.

Double Sunset, 2010, © Amy Eckert

2010-2011 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Photographers

Chuck Avery, Amy Eckert, Gina Dabrowski, Karl Raschke

Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN
June 11 - July 24, 2011

Installation view, © Amy Eckert

Here is the catalog essay about my work, written by Kris Douglas, Chief Curator, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” (Antoine de Saint Exupéry). Such a sense of longing underscores the work of Amy Eckert. Her collages express a desire to transcend the tasks and boundaries of one place and to be elsewhere—or perhaps to inhabit two places at the same time. 

Rogue Wave, 2011, © Amy Eckert

In Rogue Wave (2011), a color photograph of the sea collides with an image of a bed, neatly covered in a patterned blanket. The waves of water draw the viewer toward an expected expanse of horizon, which is abruptly interrupted by the section of bed. The juxtaposition of these images invites consideration of these dichotomous places. Perhaps they represent home vs. abroad, familiar vs. unexplored, or stable vs. inconstant. The images also compliment and unite one another with color and pattern, as the interwoven loops of stitching on the bedspread appear as waves across the fabric. 

Waterfall #19, 2011, © Amy Eckert

Eckert’s collages are often angular, geometric shapes with boundaries created by abutting materials. In Waterfall #19 (2011), she encloses empty white space with a single thin pencil line, impacting the shape and content of the work. The white expanse hints at a more ambiguous or unknown location.

The photographic images in Waterfall #19 present various glimpses of the natural world, including water coursing over rocks, tranquil waters below a lush, green landscape, and the motionless moss surrounding a tree. There is continuity, yet contrast in these images. The various states of action within the images, suggest a desire for both adventure and serenity, and a longing, perhaps simultaneously, for differing qualities of place. Eckert took many of the photographs during her travels to New Zealand, her mother’s homeland. She has described feeling a significant connection to the natural beauty and people of that particular place, which occupies space at an uncomfortable distance from her own homeland. Hence, the desire exists to manipulate and overlap the images of varying places and to experience these locations together and all at once. 

Wing, 2010, © Amy Eckert

In her series of “clouds,” Eckert layers softer shapes of photographic images with bright yellow, opaque gouache. These forms are sometimes expanded or connected by pencil lines. The overlapping images of blue sky and white clouds provide a more whimsical and ethereal feel. Space and time seem to act as nonlinear concepts, ever floating and repeating, like last glimpses of the sky captured on a long flight back home."

 

Untitled 68, 2011, © Amy Eckert

Heart With Four Chambers, 2011, © Amy Eckert

Forecast, 2010, © Amy Eckert