ARTIST: AMIE POTSIC
Art Histories are highly curated presentations of an artists’ life’s work provided for appreciators today, scholars of tomorrow, and generations to come.
“Some artists devote entire careers to a single obsession. Amie Potsic manages to divert a series of obsessions into clear and direct narratives that nonetheless build seamlessly into her own artistic portfolio... The full scope of her oeuvre interacts and builds a distinct artistic voice.”
- Nicholas Shonberger, Independent Scholar
An accomplished photographer and installation artist, Amie Potsic has created artwork in her own backyard and the ends of the earth, from photographing religious ritual in India to wildfire devastation in Northern California. In over 20 solo shows and 100 group exhibitions, Potsic has exhibited her work internationally at the Art Park in Rhodes, Greece; The Royal College of London, England; Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia; Medfoundart di Cagliari, Italy; the Museum of New Art in Detroit; The Woodmere Art Museum and The National Constitution Center Museum in Philadelphia; and The Delaware Contemporary Museum in Wilmington, DE. Her work was the topic of The Review Panel, presented by ArtCritical at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2015 and won Best in Show at the Delaware Contemporary Museum in New Eyes: Experimental Photography Today. Her work has been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, Root Quarterly, and the Philadelphia Inquirer and been featured on NPR’s Delaware Public Media.
Potsic received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and BA’s in Photojournalism and English Literature from Indiana University where she graduated with Distinguished Honors and a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute and has been a guest lecturer at The International Center of Photography. Potsic is Host of the Art Watch Radio Show and Podcast on WCHE and is the CEO & Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory, LLC.
“Embodied environmental explorations, my photographs and installations invite you to connect with your own perception of nature in a manner that is both intimate and enchanting.”
COLLECTION: GIRL IN THE GARDEN: DANGER IN PARADISE
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Artist Statement
My work references the sensory experience of being within the forest while encouraging us to appreciate and preserve its future. Incarnate environmental explorations, my photographs, mixed media works, and installations invite you to connect with your own perception of nature in a manner that is both intimate and enchanting. I focus on the beautiful delicacy of the forest to share my sense of wonder and engender a connection to trees. Personal experience underscoring the urgency of climate change, I draw attention to deforestation by creating visceral and cerebral connections to trees.
Wanting to surpass the flat surface of my beloved photographic prints, I seek to create three-dimensional environments where it feels as though you are walking directly into the photograph. Making images in forests across the globe, I later print the imagery onto hundreds of linear feet of silk. In the exhibition space, I create a wire armature upon which to drape the 4’ x 50’ long imprinted silk panels to create an enveloping forest environment. Embracing the pleasure and necessity of the photograph itself, I create monumental forest environments with silk, space, and light.
Collection: FOREST LIGHT & TWILIGHT
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Collection: MIDNIGHT MASS
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Artist Statement
Midnight Mass is a site-specific installation created from over 250 feet of silk. The semi-translucent silk with photographic imagery from the forest weaves its way through the air to arch, bend, and arabesque in the sky. The panels extend from the entrance reaching up toward the looming windows behind to be backlit like stained glass. The installation fills the space in graceful, abstract lines and draping, drawing the eye up toward the apex of the room. Looking up at the illuminated silk, a conjured sense of our own scale, akin to what we feel in a cathedral or looking up at the forest canopy, enhances the experience of the artwork and museum’s architecture.
Amie Potsic, Midnight Mass (Installation view) 2020, © Amie Potsic 2020
ExHIBITION ESSAY
Written by Kathrine Page, Gretchen Hupfel Curator of Contemporary Art at The Delaware Contemporary
“Her shapes, colors, and compositions mirror the tectonic shifts and geologic marvels of the stunning landscapes she has explored. Using a bold visual language, she recalls the intensity and elation of her adventures.” - Kathrine Page
Collection: ENDANGERED SEASONS
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Artist Statement
Photographing trees through the change of seasons, I’ve witnessed a dramatic evolution of life and the atmosphere. My imagery speaks to the specificity and depth of the forest environment. The seasonal cycle is a delicate balance of systems in nature highlighting the graceful continuity of life and death. As human existence and the livelihood of many plant and animal species depend on reliably moderate climates, our very survival is at stake without these natural cycles in place. Facing massive deforestation due to industry and global warming itself, the ill-fated future of our forests and seasons is undeniable unless we intervene. To focus attention on climate change, support improved environmental policies, and encourage an appreciation for forests and their fragility, my work emphasizes the cyclical beauty of seasons and the delicacy of nature.
Collection: Tropicália
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Artist Statement
Colorful, sensual, musical, and boisterous, Brazilian public celebrations are exuberant national rituals involving processions and parades that wend their way down main streets of towns with multi-colored flags overhead and music in the air. Brazilians become truly united only during Carnival, when the national soccer team plays, during some religious holidays, and at the time of civic festivals. Enabling disparate social groups to come together and forget the difficulty of their lives, public celebrations allow for a divided society to temporarily suspend the strong, yet unspoken, rules governing race, class, culture, and religion. These rules extend to an institutional division of public and private space, rendering the majority of the population without property or prosperity. Those who possess private space often protect it with broken glass slicing upward from walls surrounding their property. Guarding private land and buildings with such fiercely physical means seems to be in direct proportion to the powerful physicality that is palpable in the throws of Brazilian celebrations. While contemporary Brazil has made real progress in embracing the mixing of races, respecting a variety of religious practices, and caring for its needy, these protective shards of glass stand as embodiments of the country’s history of slavery, colonialism, racism, and nationalism.
Underneath the surface of their vibrant community festivals, there exists a jagged reminder that private space and resources remain largely unattainable by most. Seeing the warm inclusiveness of their festivals alongside the cutting glass of exclusion led me to wonder how people with such strong community bonds could simultaneously be so divided. Enamored with their celebrations and troubled by their separation, my work seeks to address the dynamics of contradiction in a culture of overwhelming passion, pleasure, and pain.
Collection: INDIA
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Artist Statement
Rich in ancient tradition and barreling into modernity, India and Israel are nations of amazing resilience and spiritual depth. Both countries recently celebrated 75 years of independence following years of British colonial rule and created new realities amidst ancient cultures. India being the eastern Holy Land where Hinduism and Buddhism began and Israel being the western Holy land where Judaism, Christianity, and Islam originated, these nations are both modern political entities and the birthplaces of the world’s major religions.
I spent one uninterrupted year on a solo photographic odyssey in India and Israel in 1995 at the age of 23 with just a backpack, my Hasselblad camera, and 100+ rolls of film. Throughout my journey, I was fascinated by the influence of religion on the day-to-day life of every individual. Religion often affected every aspect of a person’s life from what to eat, whom to marry, what to wear, to how to worship. Both countries have numerous religions existing side-by-side, in conflict and in harmony. Additionally, their religious traditions are administered by patriarchal systems, creating challenges for women and girls seeking equal rights and safety. Religion and ritual were everywhere in vivid, visual splendor – on every street corner, train station, temple, and home – and I was enthralled.
In the mid-1990’s, Israel was in the midst of the Peace Process after the signing of the Oslo Accords and a tenuous peace seemed just around the corner. The same year, India had yet to experience its technology boom and Bollywood had not made it to the world stage. So much has changed since then. Even so, in the face of rapidly changing societies and the struggles of modernity, India and Israel remain ancestral homes to their indigenous peoples, sacred texts, historical sites, and religious ritual. My photographs from that time are a testament to those moments in history as well as my experience of inspiration and awe for these countries of difficulty and wonder.
Book Cover Image, Amie Potsic: Seeker © Amie Potsic 2024
PUBLICATION
Amie Potsic: Seeker
ISBN: 9798881343934
"Finding myself alone in India with just a backpack, my Hasselblad camera, and 100+ rolls of film, I was terrified yet certain. This was no accident. Despite my well-intended plans, the universe had something bigger and better in mind."
- Amie Potsic
The monograph features an introduction written by Stephen Perloff, Founder and Editor of The Photo Review.
Click here to purchase the book through Amazon.
Click here to purchase the E-book.
Collection: ISRAEL
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PRESS
Amie Potsic in her installation Enchanted Forest, 2015, James Oliver Gallery
Amie Potsic is interviewed for Art Watch Radio on WCHE1520 in September 2023 and discusses the process of creating her new installation at the Cherry Street Pier for the 20/20 Photo Festival and how experiential art can inspire new perspectives and positive action on climate.
Virtual Exhibition
Amie Potsic: Forst Light & Twilight
This virtual exhibition is a companion to Amie Potsic’s Forest Light & Twilight exhibition on view at the Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia from September 1 - October 1, 2023.
Virtual Exhibition
Amie Potsic: Midnight Mass
This virtual exhibition is based on Amie Potsic’s Midnight Mass installation at
The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, Delaware. Exhibition essay written by Kathrine Page.
Virtual Exhibition
Amie Potsic: Girl in the Garden
This virtual exhibition is based on Amie Potsic’s Girl in the Garden: Danger in Paradise
exhibition at HOT•BED in Philadelphia.
Highlights Include:
6ABC Action News
Live TV Segment Interviewed by Matteo Iadonisi
The Thing of the Week
Written by The Philadelphia Inquirer
Amie Potsic, Forest Light and Twilight, Installation View, 25' x 20' x 160', Photographic imagery printed on mesh, Cherry Street Pier, 2023, © Amie Potsic 2023
The Delaware Contemporary presents ‘Focal Points: Women Advancing the Aperture’
Written by Gail Obenreder
Amie Potsic, Untitled 3 (from Seduce Me) Silver Gelatin Print, 2000, © Amie Potsic 2000
Arts Playlist: Midnight Mass
at the Delaware Contemporary
Written by Kelli Steele
Amie Potsic, Enchanted Forest Installation, Archival pigment prints on silk, 2015, © Amie Potsic 2015
Girl in the Garden featured in
Root Quarterly Art Journal
Summer 2020 Issue
Amie Potsic, Vision, Mixed Media on Panel, 36 x 72 inches, 2019, © Amie Potsic 2019
Girl in the Garden: Danger in Paradise
featured in Chadds Ford Live
Written by Constance McBride
© Amie Potsic, Danger in Paradise #1, Archival Pigment Print, 22” x 29”, 2019
Meet the Four Female Curators
Who Are Reframing the Local Arts Scene
October 2019 Issue
Written by Melissa Jacobs for Main Line Today
Image of Amie Potsic, Courtesy of Main Line Today
Enchanted Forest
by Amie Potsic at James Oliver Gallery
Written by Lauren Findlay
Enchanted Forest Installation by Amie Potsic, Photo by Lauren Findlay
Amie Potsic, Endangered Seasons at the Delaware Contemporary © Amie Potsic 2015
To acquire artwork from Amie Potsic’s collection, email info@amiepotsicartadvisory.com.
Click here to download Amie Potsic’s CV.
To learn more about the artist: amiepotsic.com
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