ABOUT
Hello! Printmaker Amelia Johnson here.
I graduated from Falmouth University in 2022 where I did a BA in Fine Art and am currently employed as Assistant technician at the Print Centre at Falmouth University.
2021 Artist Statement:
Bird watching? Yes, they are! My work focuses on the hybrid bird/human characters I have created known as BirdFolk. These figures appear within woodcut, paintings, collages, and have begun to inhabit real life spaces through video work and 3D sculpture. As anthropomorphized birds these figures explore both the human and non-human; interrupting and confronting the relationships humans have with birds.
By garbing these figures in human clothes, the bird’s iconic power of flight is stripped from them and they remain shackled to the earth, alien and yet familiar. Sometimes playful, often quite unsettling at first, these figures dominate the space, staring at the viewer as ‘the bird that watches back’. The egocentric and familiar form of the human is taken from us and given new absurdity and a loaded gaze. Birds are all around us, maybe BirdFolk are too.
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EXPERIENCE
Education:
2018/19 – Foundation Diploma (Level 4) Art and Design, Distinction
2019/22 – BA (Hons) Fine Art at Falmouth University
Awards/Prizes/Notes:
British Art Medal Society (BAMS) – G W Lunts Prize winner of 2021 for ‘Of Cavities and Hollows’
Member of the 2022 Tate St. Ives Emerging Artist Platform
Exhibitions:
2019 - Totnes Foundation Summer Show, KEVICC, Totnes
2021 - Streetview 1, Falmouth
2021 - Streetview 2, Falmouth
2021 - Miniatures, Grays Wharf, Penryn
2021 - Poly Spring Opening 2021, Falmouth
202022
2021 - Introduction, Goldfish Bowl Gallery, Falmouth
2021/22 - Cornish Wildlife Trust Exhibition, Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth
2022 - BEWARE BIRDFOLK (Solo Exhibition), Goldfish Bowl Gallery, Falmouth
2022 - Absolute - Falmouth Showcase, Woodlane Campus Falmouth University, Falmouth
2022 - 169 Annual Open Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2023 - Imagine Falmouth, Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth
2023 - Miniatures 3, Exploring the Monstrous and the Miniature, Grays Wharf, Penryn
2023 - 20:20 Print Exchange Tour, Cheshire, Wolverhampton, Yorkshire
2023 - Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Open 2023, Mall Galleries, London
