Amy Joy Watson UNTIL SUNBEAMS FIND YOU
14 November to 7 December 2024
Artist Statement
In creating the embroidered tarnished brass mesh works for Until Sunbeams Find You, Amy continues to develop her own visual language of weaving metallic threads through surfaces to melding celestial and earthly landscapes with the play of light.
The new material direction in this body of work evolved from a happy accident in the studio, where pristine golden mesh developed a patina, inspiring Amy to experiment with developing patinas. Where she once applied watercolour washes to paper, the artist now tarnishes the brass with household acids, embracing the unpredictability of time and the elements. In some works, Amy has embroidered around the tarnish, not hiding, but highlighting it. In works like Sky map, shimmering golden threads physically manifest the artists meditation practice as they mimic cascading water or “liquid sunshine”. In other works, she cuts away tarnished spots as if performing a gentle surgery, mirroring the careful excision of moles, or appliques over with raw or tarnished brass creating a patchwork of repairs. The result evokes twinkling distant galaxies, Kaleidoscope patterns playing behind your eyelids or perhaps what happens just before you drift off to sleep. This slow, deliberate hand-stitching has become an essential form of active meditation, supporting the artists mental well-being.
These labour-intensive processes with brass speak to Amy’s personal healing through vulnerability. The works reveal scars, and transformations, turning imperfections into something more beautiful.
Amy has realised that her slow and gentle hand stitching process has in fact always been an active meditation and one vital to her mental health. These laborious processes with the brass speaks to her own journey of healing through vulnerability. The works reveal their skin grafts and scars transforming imperfection and repair to something richer and more beautiful.
Biography
Amy Joy Watson was born in Adelaide, South Australia and graduated from Adelaide Central School of Art in 2008 with a Bachelor of Visual Art with Honours. Amy has been successful in winning several grants and scholarships through CARCLEW, Arts SA and the Australia Council for the Arts. She was awarded an International Studio and Curatorial Program residency in New York in 2012, the 2012 Critics Circle Prize, the 2013 Qantas Australian Contemporary Art Award and an Australia Council Tokyo Studio Residency in 2014.
Amy has presented exhibitions throughout Australia at galleries including Hugo Michell Gallery, Dianne Tanzer Gallery, West Space, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney Contemporary, Penrith Art Gallery, Rockhampton Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Amy has been commissioned to create several major public artworks throughout Australia and has work in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Bank, Wollongong Art Gallery, Gippsland Art Gallery and private collections around the world.