Amy Mower Artist Statement 

I am a multimedia artist working with acrylic paints, watercolor, tempera, tissue paper, and vintage ephemera to create paintings, collages, and prints. The mediums I work with deeply influence the kind of artwork that is created. If it is a vintage magazine, that may lead me to a surreal yet witty examination of popular culture. When I paint, I find myself wanting to explore the beauty of the natural world as well as unique objects. I enjoy learning new things and seeing how far I can take a medium. I hope to tell a story with each piece I make. I want the viewer to enjoy it on many levels. I want it to be interesting or beautiful to look at, I want it to make you think or feel, and also, I hope they will linger long enough to start thinking about how it was created.

Exhibit Description – Colorful World, Tissue Paper Collage

The body of work you see before you started as a journey to marry my love of collage and my love of painting. I first learned about collaging with tissue by trying a children’s art lesson plan to create a cityscape with pieces of cut tissue paper. I did this with a group of residents at the senior living facility I worked at. We all enjoyed the process, and I found I loved the bright colors as well as the color mixing that happened with layering the semi-transparent paper over one another. I returned to the process but started asking myself how I could elevate the material and add complexity. I quickly learned on my first attempt at a more complicated landscape that I would have to think strategically about color and layering as once white was gone there was no retrieving it. As I continued to make new work, I began adding textures and shades through use of different media on the tissue paper before and after collaging. The end result of those explorations is here. Look closely at the layers, the way the light and dark tissues create depth. Notice how the hues remain light and airy where the layers are thinnest. The texture of the tissue itself suggests craggy rock and lapping waves. What place of beauty can you imagine in delicate layers of color?