New Jersey native Amy Decker (she/her) received her BFA in Graphic Design from the School of Visual Arts, and holds an MFA from Lesley University. Her work has been exhibited at the Art Students League, Knockdown Center, Art Directors Club, and ChaShaMa at Brooklyn Bridge Park, among other venues. The artist currently lives in Brooklyn and works as a textile designer.
My pieces serve as guides to reconnect to the dynamic, shape-shifting life path, and can be seen as a reflective act to reestablish mind-body synchronization on a human scale. They are a combination of drawing, painting, and collage, and can be seen as maps; abstracted and swirling, indirect yet engaging.
I begin with word drawings of obsessive thoughts, making an amalgam of letter-forms which serve as the foundational architecture of the ensuing piece. This is a grounding activity that processes emotional residues, thus engaging with the unconscious and its subtler influences. Once the preliminary text exercises have taken shape, I apply them to another ground, usually toned and with a mixture of textures such as unprimed canvas and primed, or different paper qualities; this offers opportunities to remain present while making, responding to how the media react to the different grounds.
These inner-chatter-based formations are then flipped so the reverse side is visible, and then either adhered to a board or projected onto a canvas or large sheet of paper. They become structural elements from which I layer atop color, shapes, and a multitude of marks, aiming to connect them via these very modalities. I see these pieces as responding to the teetering uncertainty of present times, an attempt to hem in that which is too much.