Ashes to Ashes - Amanda Bollman (Newport, Kentucky)

Ashes to Ashes

Amanda Bollman (Newport, Kentucky)

Oil paint, screen printing, found objects, blood, 48” W x 48” H

Artist Statement:

This multimedia exhibition confronts the institution of family. Trauma and memory are exposed through photography, painting, screen printing, found objects and items collected from the body.  I consider the institution of family to be the most impactful as well as the hardest to break from.  Ashes to ashes started with my favorite photograph of my dead grandmother — whose opinions have impacted my perspective of myself for a very long time. This installation is inspired by Rauschenberh, T.R. Ericsson, Basquiat, and musicians like the Ramones. Grandma Bollman, I hope you knew — Sin can be a good thing too.

Artwork:

Ashes to Ashes is about how lack of support from family after a traumatic event can affect an individual. In my experience the trauma revolved around watching my grandmother die. This impacted the way I perceive myself for the better half of the past ten years.  A lack of support can lead to self destruction through the pursuit of fleeting pleasures. This influence on my perspective led me to addiction. Another pursuit was boys which led to the necessity to choose between abortion or life on multiple occasions as well as abuse. These are some of the consequences in my experience. There is a message of hope with the pursuit of a positive perspective and taking action to better yourself expressed by the over arching madonna and child. I thought I was a bad person which turns out we as humans are just imperfect expressed through misprinting. Every decision in the final product is intentional from the fraying of fabric to the photo reference.

$2000