Meet Amanda Adkins | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amanda Adkins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Setting a schedule has helped me find balance. There are days I know I will be in the studio working and other days where I take time to apply for artist calls. Taking time away to reflect also gives me clarity on how to move forward with my work practice and what I’m interested in creating. Finding that balance can be tricky at times but I realize even doing the smallest of amount of work on my art moves me forward.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My current series of work is temporal and devotional in nature. I’m focused on a long journey of coming out of medical trauma and a horrible disease called endometriosis. My work reflects this journey and how I tell my story has changed. In the heart of it, I focused on the disease and what was happening to me physically. I adopted a folkloric way to tell my story and used animals and nature to pass down a tale of female disease and trauma. My focus now revolves around healing the body and what that looks like for me. Based loosely around a quote from a movie “Every seed must destroy itself before it becomes a flower” I’ve taken the human figure and morphed it into a seed. What do I want to grow there? How and where do I need healing within myself? The focus is not sexual even though it’s my female organs that basically caused most of the damage to my body. I’ve also been looking at the way a seed grows and how it twists, turns and cracks open to grow. All things that can be a metaphor for life and struggle. Developing my style took time and it’s still a work in progress as I experiment with different techniques on the wood panels that I use. I have some panels that I just experiment on until I figure out what looks good. I think doing that and having something I’m ok with destroying, and throwing away has helped me not treat each panel like they are precious. I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way, the main one being to paint what I want.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I were to take a friend to some of my favorite go to eating spots in downtown phoenix, we would surely hit up Ollie Vaghn’s for some breakfast and Carly’s Bistro for lunch. Cha Cha’s Tea House for a little afternoon tea. I would also have to take them to some of my favorite dessert spots Churn Ice Cream and Urban Cookie. We would hit up some vintage stores in the melrose area and check out the farmers markets. I love Phoenix, but leaving Phoenix would be a ideal. So I would definitely take them up north to the Sedona area and go creek hopping and exploring.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shout out!! To all the galleries and friends who have supported my work. Thank you for recognizing what I do!

Website: www.amandaadkinsart.com
Instagram: @Amanda_Adkins_Art
Facebook: amanda_adkins_art

Image Credits
All Photos belong to Amanda Adkins