Amy Friend

About

Lives and works in Niagara, Canada

Amy Friend creates multi-layered photographs that transport viewers into an emotional dream world. She devotes herself with great intensity not only to such issues as identity and the past but to the medium of photography as such. She works with various methodologies through photography, installation, and community based collaborations. Friend’s work fluctuates with investigations relative to history, time, land-memory, dust, oceans and our connection to the universe.

Just as photographs are fragile objects in themselves, their content is often fragile as well. Amy Friend’s work highlights precisely these two qualities: the fragility of the photographic object and of life. The artist reuses, revisits, backlights -practicing holes on the images-, re-photographs and, therefore, re-signifies old portraits that came to her through different sources. With this elegant modus operandi she achieves something exceptional as she is able, through light – the raw material of photography – to bring these old images back to life; she is able to illuminate the darkness that surrounds the past and, at the same time, turn it into something beautiful.

CV

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life, Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON, Canada (2022)
It Begins with Salt and Stars, Incamera Galerie, Paris, France (2022)
Celestial Sea, 122 Ricami Gallery, Trapani, Sicily (2022)
Amy Friend, InCamera Galerie, Paris, France (2019)
Stardust, Civic Museum of Pallazzo de Penna, Perugia, Italy (2018)
Récits Photographique, Abbey De Silvacane, Provence, France (2017)
Eternal Light, Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2016)
Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life, Rodman Hall, St. Catharines, ON, Canada (2016)
Dare alla Luce, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA (2015)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

This is how we look, is this who we are?, Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2024)
La nuit, le Regard se tourney vers la lune et les Étoiles, Meymac Centre d’art contemporain, Meymac, France (2024)
Summer, Bildhalle, Zurich, Switzerland (2024)
Memory Orchards, Candela Gallery, Richmond, USA (2024)
L’épreuves de la matière, Bibliothèque Nationale De France, Paris, France (2023)
Fragments of Everything and Nothing, Museum London, London, Canada (2023)
Print Auction Exhibition, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, USA (2023)
Unnecessary Exhibition in Life, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2023)
Anniversary Edition, Incamera Galerie, Paris, France (2023)
Climate Crisis, NAC, St. Catharines, Canada (2022)
Ocean, Bildhalle Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland (2021)
Multi-verse, Orestiadi Foundation, Gibellina, Sicily (2021)
Keeper of the Hearth, Houston Centre for Photography, Houston, USA (2020)
Altered Image, Dina Mitrani Gallery, Miami Design District, Miami, USA (2020)
Finding Love, Center of Photography Mart, Yekaterinburg, Russia (2020)
Viewing Room – Contemporary Women, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, USA (2020)
Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2019)
Standpoint, Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Odesa, Ukraine (2019)
Sèberu, Villa Verde, Sardinia, Italy (2019)
Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home, PhMuseum, Alghero, Italy (2019)
Unnecessary Exhibition in Life, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2019)
Elles X Paris Photo, sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture, Paris, France (2018)
At Sea, Panopticon Gallery, Boston, USA (2017)
Memory Lab of Happiness, Museo Municipal, Ourense, Spain (2016)
Encontros Da Imagem, Mosteiro de Tibães, Braga, Portugal (2016)
Chronologues, Museum London, London, Canada (2016)
The Curator, Foley Gallery, New York, USA (2015)
Under Astral Skies, 555 Gallery, Boston, USA (2015)
Strange Cities, Onassis Cultural Center, Athens, Greece (2015)
Cornu Copiae, Stephen Romano Gallery, New York, USA (2014)
Breaking Ground: Contemporary Photography, Andrews Gallery, Williamsburg, USA (2014)
In Missa Interfectionis, Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn, USA (2014)
Image Constructed: Constructed Image, Wellington B. Gray Gallery, Greenville, USA (2014)

ART RESIDENCIES

SoCA Artist Residency, University of Windsor School of Creative Arts (2023)
Canada Council for the Arts, Explore and Create: Research and Creation (2018, 2021)
Ontario Arts Council, Visual Arts Creation Project (2021)
Banff Artist in Residence – Banff, Alberta (2011)

FAIRS & FESTIVALS

CONTACT PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Galeria Speducci, Toronto, Canada (2023)
INCADAQUES PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Cadaques, Spain (2022)
UNSEEN AMSTERDAM, Bildhalle, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2021)
BUSAN PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Busan, South Korea (2019)
PARIS PHOTO, InCamera Galerie, Paris, France (2018)
INDIAN PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Hyderbad, India (2018)
VINTAGE PHOTO FESTIVAL, Bydgoszcz, Poland (2016)
GETXOPHOTO FESTIVAL, Bilbao, Spain (2016)
DONG GANG INTERNATIONAL PHOTO FESTIVAL, Yeongwol, Korea (2016)
GUATEPHOTO FESTIVAL, Antigua, Guatemala (2015)
ATHENS PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Athens, Greece (2015)
PHOTOVILLE FESTIVAL, New York, USA (2014)
SANTANDER PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL, Santander, Spain (2014)

AWARDS & GRANTS
Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Abroad Grant (2008, 2017)
Regan Peacock-Fung Memorial Art Fund (2015)
Clarke Thompson Award for Excellence in Sessional Teaching (2015)
Ontario Arts Council, Emerging Artist Grant (2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016)
Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)
Windsor Endowment for the Arts, Emerging Artist Grant, Visual Arts (2012)

COLLECTIONS
Bibliothèque Nationale De France, Paris, France
Fondation Hermès, Paris, France
Ritz Carleton Yacht Collection, Floriana, Malta
Onassis Center, Athens, Greece
Orestiadi Foundation, Gibellina, Sicily
City of St. Catharines, Canada
Candela Collection, USA
York University, Toronto, Canada Private Collections

ARTIST TALKS AND JURIES

St. Catharines Arts Awards, Juror, St. Catharines, Canada (2024)
We Look to See, Artist Talk, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada (2023)
International Centre for Photography, Artist Talk, New York, USA (2021)
Reinventing Representation, Conference Speaker, Society for Photographic Education, Houston, USA (2020)
The Accumulation and Metamorphosis of Informal Archives in Creative Practice and Research, UAAC, Quebec, Canada (2019)
Récits Photographique, Artist Talk, La Roque D’Athéron, France (2017)
OCAD, Artist Talk, Toronto, Canada (2017)
St Catharines Public Library, Brock Talks, Finding Photographs, St. Catharines, Canada (2017)
Vintage Photo Festival, Artist talk, Bydgoszcz, Poland (2016)
Getxo Photography Festival, Artist/curator talk, Getxo, Spain (2016)
Ryerson Converge Lecture Series, Toronto, Canada (2016)
Rodman Hall, Hot Talks, Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life, St. Catharines, Canada (2016)
Society for Photographic Education, Featured Speaker, USA (2014)
Integrating the Arts Conference, Workshop Presenter, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada (2014)
University of South Carolina, Department of Fine Arts, Columbia, USA (2014)
Rodman Hall, On Joy Walker’s Exhibition, Fade to Black, St. Catharines, Canada (2013)
East Carolina University, Greenville, USA (2013)
Juror, RENEW, NAC, St. Catharines, Canada (2013)
In the Works, Public Lecture, NAC, St. Catharines, Canada (2013)
Art Gallery of Windsor, Made in America Talk and Tour, Windsor, Canada (2012)
York University, Artist Talk, Toronto, Canada (2010)
Burlington Arts Center, Artist Talk, Burlington, Canada (2009)