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Work Samples

Untitled (Under Surveillance)

Untitled (Under Surveillance) (installation detail) Site specific drawing installation at Arlington Art Center Flashe, acrylic, paper, tape and lights 2016

Nothing to see here

Two sided ink drawing on folded paper 16 x 20" 2018

Hazard

Ink and collage on paper 11 x 12” 2017

Interior spread, "Quorum Call"

Detail of 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.

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About Amanda

Baltimore City

Amanda Burnham's picture
I make drawings and large, site specific installations which are also drawings. The former ink and water media works  often begin as anecdotal moments either recorded or observed as I explore the city around me, and frequently evolve to enfold idiosyncratic personal iconography that emphasizes the darkly comic and absurd. The latter are motivated by similar concerns. They are (usually) composed of hundreds of quick, gestural acrylic and flashe paint sketches made with a fat brush that are then cut... more

Drawing Installations 2015-present

I make drawings and large, site specific installations which are also drawings. The former ink, water media, and collage works often begin as anecdotal moments either recorded or observed as I explore the city around me, and frequently evolve to enfold idiosyncratic personal iconography that brings light to the psychological context of my representations. The latter are motivated by similar concerns. They are (usually) composed of hundreds of quick, gestural acrylic and flashe paint sketches made with a fat brush that are then cut and collaged onto both built armatures and the existing surfaces of a space; these are sometimes further animated with embedded lighting. The effect is somewhere between a comic book and a stage set. I mean for these works to enfold the viewer in a graphic space that resists the hierarchical, fixed, singular viewpoints of perspectival representation, offering instead a dense, heterogenous space that can be navigated any number of ways, moving and pulsing, much like the city milieus that inspire them.

  • Civic Body

    Site specific installation at Visarts, Rockville Acrylic, flashe, paper, and tape on wall/floor approx. 30' x 10' 2017 photo credit: Joseph Hyde
  • Civic Body (detail)

    Site specific installation at Visarts, Rockville Acrylic, flashe, paper, and tape on wall/floor approx. 30' x 10' 2017
  • In the Weeds

    In the Weeds (detail view) Site specific drawing installation at the Berman Museum of Art Flashe, acrylic, and paper on wall Approx. 60 x 10 x 2' 2016
  • In the Weeds (detail)

    In the Weeds (detail view) Site specific drawing installation at the Berman Museum of Art Flashe, acrylic, and paper on wall Approx. 60 x 10 x 2' 2016
  • Untitled (Under Surveillance)

    Untitled (Under Surveillance) (installation view) Site specific drawing installation at Arlington Art Center Flashe, acrylic, paper, tape and lights 2016
  • Untitled (Under Surveillance)

    Untitled (Under Surveillance) (installation detail) Site specific drawing installation at Arlington Art Center Flashe, acrylic, paper, tape and lights 2016
  • Untitled (Under Surveillance)

    Untitled (Under Surveillance) (installation detail) Site specific drawing installation at Arlington Art Center Flashe, acrylic, paper, tape and lights 2016
  • In Situ

    detail view of site specific installation at the Gershman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Ink, acrylic, flashe, paper on wall approx. 20 x 10 x 20' 2018
  • Untitled (Overheard)

    Untitled (Overheard) (Installation detail) Site specific drawing installation at the University of Central Missouri Flashe, acrylic, paper, and tape on wall 2016
  • Ningbo Road

    Ningbo Road (installation view) Site specific drawing installation at Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University Flashe, acrylic, paper, and tape on wall 2016

Works on Paper, 2017-2018

Using ink and other water media on paper, and an exaggerated, often frantic comic visual language, I make three dimensional drawings which both allude to and frustrate traditional pictorial space. Dense, baroque, entwined compositions are a challenge to navigate and present multiple points of emphasis simultaneously.  Double sided drawings which are then folded , cut into, or popped out, yield continuous imagery which can never be fully accessed or understood at once. Strategic layering and images of holes, spotlights, screens, and nets reference obfuscation, misdirection, and artifice.  With these structural and symbolic motifs, I mean to suggest difficulties of navigating the contemporary world as an individual – particularly in the face of overwhelming systemic disfunction and the suspicious and contested nature of information.

Drawing Installations 2013-2015

Over the past several years, I've been developing a body of temporary works that draws thematically from my works on paper and allows me to experiment with the forms that interest me on a large scale. Like my other work, I think of these pieces as drawings - they're made with similar materials (paint and paper), and there are many parallels with my other work in terms of the way they're put together (both make use of collage as a fundamental strategy, for instance). These "wall drawings" afford me different kinds of opportunities from my smaller drawings, however - primarily the chance to more aggressively make use of space, dramatize the page with atmospheric lighting, and to envelop/implicate the viewer.

  • Grid Plan

    Three views of a site specific drawing installation for "The Neighbors", American University Art Museum, 2014
  • Better Waverly

    Site specific drawing installation for "High Contrast" at CCBC Catonsville, MD, 2014
  • Para-Site

    Four details of a site specific drawing installation for the Sondheim Semifinalists' Exhibition, MICA, Baltimore, MD, 2014
  • Para-site

    Panoramic view of a site specific drawing installation for the Sondheim Semifinalists' Exhibition, MICA, Baltimore, MD, 2014
  • Drift

    Two detail views of a site specific drawing installation for Olin Gallery, Washington and Jefferson University, 2014
  • Drift

    Two detail views of a site specific drawing installation for Olin Gallery, Washington and Jefferson University, 2014
  • Drift

    Detail view of a site specific drawing installation for Olin Gallery, Washington and Jefferson University, 2014
  • Pump Fake

    Site specific drawing installation for NoMA Bid project with Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC, 2013
  • Rover

    Two views of a site specific drawing installation for Maryland Art Place Benefit, Baltimore, MD, 2013
  • boomtown

    Site specific drawing installation for Birke Gallery, Marshall University, Huntington, WV, 2013

RFP - 2015

An open ended drawing installation picturing Baltimore through massed drawings of its structures and the words and images of city residents, "RFP" celebrated the ideal of an open city that actively welcomes and functions on behalf of all its residents. Constructed entirely at EMP Collective's downtown locations (a vast, raw former commercial storefront in the Bromo Tower District), “RFP” was built and evolved all day, every day, over the course of two months. Throughout, visitors were welcomed into the space as I worked, and encouraged both by me and by the design of the piece to contribute (a large central table beckoned with tape, pens, and paper piles – some slips blank, others with prompts encouraging reflection on the city and our places in it, like “I feel the most like I belong here when…”, "this town needs...", and "Baltimore is..."). Though the exhibition closed February 28th, the visitor additions, which were thoroughly documented, are being compiled into a book.

More information and documentation on the project can be found at: www.rfpbaltimore.org

Drawing Installations 2011-2013

Over the past several years, I've been developing a body of temporary works that draws thematically from my works on paper and allows me to experiment with the forms that interest me on a large scale. Like my other work, I think of these pieces as drawings - they're made with similar materials (paint and paper), and there are many parallels with my other work in terms of the way they're put together (both make use of collage as a fundamental strategy, for instance). These "wall drawings" afford me different kinds of opportunities from my smaller drawings, however - primarily the chance to more aggressively make use of space, dramatize the page with atmospheric lighting, and to envelop/implicate the viewer.

  • Co-dependency

    View of a site specific installation at "House, Dignified", Area 405, 2013
  • Loop

    Wall drawing, Towson Town Center, for Maryland Art Place "Impact" Public Art program, 2013
  • S.O.S.

    Two views of a site specific installation at Meyerhoff Gallery, MICA, 2013
  • Edge City

    View of a site specific installation at the Pearl Conard Gallery, the Ohio State University, Mansfield, 2013
  • Gathering

    Two installation views of a site specific piece at Bridge Gallery, New York, NY, 2012.
  • Greenmount

    Site specific installation for "Beyond the Parking Lot", Artisphere, Arlington, VA, 2012.
  • Back Alley

    Two installation views of a site specific piece for the Sondheim Semifinalists Show, Artscape, Maryland Institute College of Art, 2012.
  • Limn

    Three installation views of a site specific piece at the Furlong Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stout, 2012.
  • Walkshed

    Three installation views of a site specific piece at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE, 2011.
  • Import

    Three installation views of a site specific piece at Volta 7, Basel, Switzerland, 2011.

"Quorum Call" - 2018

This collection is the result of an endurance drawing project: shortly after the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, I set out to draw every individual (105 total) to serve as a member of the United States Senate during the 115th Congress. This impulse arose from my desire to better know the sometimes opaque and arcane machinations of the federal government. Deep diving into the intimidatingly vast primary source of C-Span’s digital archive in the hunt for source imagery not only allowed me to grapple with the humanity of the members through the slow and contemplative process of observational drawing, but also became an access point to a trove of illuminating procedural and biographical knowledge. The collection was published in 2018 by Antenna as an artist book. In the book, the drawings are reproduced on translucent vellum along with the date of the footage from which they came. The cover includes a seal printed in transparent ink.

  • Cover, "Quorum Call"

    105 page, 4 x 6" artist book published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Interior spread, "Quorum Call"

    Detail of 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Al Franken 1-12-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Ben Sasse 5-17-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Bernie Sanders 1-27-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • ClaireMcCaskill 6-17-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Dianne Feinstein 3-31-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Jeff Flake 12-2-15

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Orrin Hatch 5-2-17

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.
  • Jeff Sessions 12-16-15

    Drawing excerpted from 105 page, 4 x 6" artist book, "Quorum Call", published by Antenna, 2018.

"Rage Faces" - 2016

This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China. Far removed physically from the political theater at play, my sense of frustration and individual impotence was especially high.

The drawings making up this zine began from this tense psychological place - but as I did them, they slowed me down, and made me really look, ask questions, and grapple with nuance (as drawing does).

28pp, edition of 100, available at Printed Matter, Inc (NYC) and Atomic Books. Part of the artist book collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (DC) and the New York Public Library.

  • Rage Faces (cover)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (interior spread detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (interior spread detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (Interior spread detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.
  • Rage Faces (detail)

    This zine features a collection of delicate pen and ink portraits I made from looking at the blurry blown up margins of photographs of Trump rally crowds during summer 2016. I had just spent several days watching the RNC through VPN on a laptop while at a residency in Shanghai, China.

Recent Drawings III

This group of drawings are representative of a body of work presently underway - though related to the landscape concerns of my past work, these works have more in common with the subjective organization of my installations than my older drawings, and more extensively capitalize on the metaphoric potential of landscape idioms.

Recent Drawings II

This group of drawings are representative of a body of work presently underway - though related to the landscape concerns of my past work, these works have more in common with the subjective organization of my installations than my older drawings, and more extensively capitalize on the metaphoric potential of landscape idioms.

"Just No" - 2016

This body of drawings builds on the landscape concerns of my work while also pulling in idiosyncratic personal iconography. Begun during my residency at the Embassy for Foreign Artists in Geneva, Switzerland (April-June 2015), they became the basis of my 2016 self published artist book, "Just No."

Connect with Amanda

Amanda's Curated Collection

This artist has not yet created a curated collection.