Amanda C. Mathis

Statement

My work is an exploration of thoughts on dwelling, personal narrative, and memory. I am interested in the ordinary details of our domestic architecture and how they can portray feelings about place and time. Drawing from the home for my source material, I use color, pattern, architecture and location to reference personal and collective histories. Like incomplete fragments of memory, cropped pieces of imagery are assembled in abstract arrangements.

Contrary to one's first impression, my paper collages are not digitally compiled images but rather physically joined photographs. All of the photographs used in these pieces are my own; nothing is appropriated. Paper collage is just one element of my practice and is, in essence, my method of drawing or sketching. As a fairly accessible way for me to explore my subject matter and develop my visual language, it has become a method of making that consistently informs my other bodies of work, including assemblage, installation and sculpture.