Internationally-recognized artist Amalia Amaki showcasing new artwork at The Art Gallery at Eissey Campus
Artist Amalia Amaki, former professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of Alabama, is featuring her latest artwork in an exhibition titled “Homage: Poems and Images of Gratitude and Affection” through Feb. 8 at The Art Gallery at Eissey Campus, Palm Beach State College.
The exhibit, which is inspired by a limited edition artist book of the same title, features poems each accompanied by Amaki’s expressive artwork.
“This project is a collection of conversations,” says Amaki. “Conversations with people who had a major impact on my life and work….some conversations that were not continued on this side of the veil but needed to be….some reconciliatory conversations about things that were not taken care of on this side of the veil but needed to be healed and coveted….some conversations that never started but needed life…and, some conversations that were necessary just because.”
“In each case, at some point, these people at critical moments saved my life,” says Amaki. “Thinking about each one of them inevitably caused me to remember that unifying fact – the saving of a life that had my name, face and breath on it.”
Amaki is an artist, critic, writer, poet, art historian and former professor of art history currently based in Atlanta. She has had 47 solo exhibitions, and participated in more than 100 group shows in 39 states, as well as Italy, France, England, Ghana, China, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Her photography, photo-based and new media-based artwork combines fabricated and found components to address implications of popular media, cultural assumption and commercialism.
One of her signature books, “Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons, and the Blues” brings together her photographs, quilts, souvenir fans and mixed-media works. It incorporates fabric, beads, pearls, buttons, paint, glitter and photographs with cultural symbols and visual puns, challenging and reconfiguring American history in original and meaningful ways.
The gallery is located in the Palm Beach Gardens campus’ BB building, Room 113 and hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. For more information, call Art Gallery Specialist Karla Walter at 561-207-5015 or email walterk@palmbeachstate.edu.
