Amanda Means | American, 1945 -
Biography
Amanda Means was raised in a small Upstate New York farming community. She moved to New York City over twenty-five years ago. Her artwork reflects a sense of nature in this crowded, urban environment. Initially, Means photographed tangles of underbrush in the countryside and printed the results in her lower Manhattan darkroom. The tangles represented the chaotic environment that surrounded her. Now Means continues to explore the duality of natural and human built environments by photographing light bulbs and water glasses. She explores how the mysterious presence of natural forces can be found even in these small, mass-produced objects.
Education
BA Cornell University, 1969; MFA, SUNY Buffalo (Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N.Y.), 1978; Apeiron Workshops, Millerton, NY, 1979, Intensive study with Ralph Gibson.
Selected Collections
Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Boston, MA; Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Avon Collection of Women Photographers, NYC; Robinson and Nancy Grover Collection, Hartford, CT; W.M.Hunt - Collection Dancing Bear, NYC; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, England; St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY; Whitehead Collection of Art, Boston, MA.
Solo Exhibitions
Grounds for Sculpture, Trenton, NJ (2009); Howard Yezerski Gallery (2009); Nina Freudenheim Gallery, (2009); Bergdorf Goodman (2008); Ricco/Maresca Gallery (2008); St. Olaf College (2008); The Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, MA (2008); Gallery 339, Philadelphia (2008, 2006); Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston (2000, 2003); Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2003); HastedHunt Gallery, NYC (1998, 2001); Metta Galeria, Madrid, Spain (1999); Gremillion Co., Houston, Texas (1998); Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middlebury, CT (1983).
Group Exhibitions
Nina Freudenheim Gallery (2010); Howard Yezerski Gallery (2009); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2006); Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC (1997, 2008); HastedHunt Gallery, NYC (2000); Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY (2003); Pamela Auchincloss Project Space (2001); Islip Art Museum, Baldwin, NY (2001); Richard Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY (1999); Zelda Cheatle Gallery, London (1999); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (1999); Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY (1999); Dorsky Gallery, NYC (1999); Pace University Gallery, Pleasantville, NY (1999); International Center of Photography, NYC (1997).
Teaching and Lecturing
SUNY Plattsburgh (1989); Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC, Canada (1992); University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada (1992); St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY (1999); International Center of Photography, NY, NY (2000); Parsons School of Design, NY, NY (2001); University of Memphis, Memphis, TN (2001); Pratt Institute, NY, NY (2002); Harvard Museum of Natural History (2008).
Publications
fluence -- Ricco/Maresca Gallery online magazine (August 2010); The New York Times (November 2006); The New York Times (October 2005); Exploring Color Photography, McGraw-Hill, (2004); pdn (2004); 2wice Magazine, GLOW (2002); Harry Abrams, Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde -- The New Wave in Old Processes (2002); Oprah Magazine, The Brain (2002); Harper's Magazine (1998); New Yorker Magazine ( 2007, 2001).
Professional Experience
Contributing Editor to BOMB Magazine (1985 - present); Master black and white photographic printer specializing in oversize prints (1985 - 1995). Printing clients include Robert Mapplethorpe, Roni Horn, Smithsonian Institution and Petah Coyne. Trustee, The John Coplans Trust (2003 - ). Nominee Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2005). Recently moved from Manhattan to Beacon, NY.