The Flomenhaft Gallery is very proud to exhibit the art of Emma Amos. Amos tells us that her paintings and works on paper often reflect her history as an artist growing up in the segregated South. Since her early years as an artist knowing Hale Woodruff, Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, Vivian Brown, Camille Billops, Faith Ringgold and more recently, Elizabeth Catlett, she has often pictured the separation of black artists from the mainstream.
From 1988 she has continued her Falling Series, as in Head First (2006) and the 5 “Box” forms with figures that actually dangle from their structures. Using falling figures has been a favorite device for Amos to eliminate all that is stationary in her work, a way of having absolute movement. But in many of her works the falling images may also refer to her psychological and physical battle with the present and the hereafter. Certainly nostalgia is felt most poignantly in My Mothers, My Sisters, as she clings to and reflects on the images of her dead mother and her mother’s 1930’s heroes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Jack Johnson, Jim Thorpe, a Fisk University “letter” classmate, and Amos’ Grandma Emma. When making the drawing for this print, Emma added the artists Mae Stevens and Kaye Walkingstick, as she thinks of them as “all of “our” mothers and “our” sisters.”
A grid of 20 prints creates a stunning rhythmic work as athletes and dancers magically interact in Kicks (c. 1983). African borders are used to dramatic effect in Way Away, utilizing the figure of the powerful and unique dancer, Bill T. Jones, on this work inspired by an ancient Greek vessel, and Carnivale is another rhythmic “tour de force” with an African border surround.
Always Amos has painted works that refer to her Black American heroes. In addition to including two works inspired by Bill T. Jones, there is a painting of Angela Davis, the latter with a stunning beaded strip woven border. Maybe If I Stand on My Head is an ironical work that reflects Amos’s tongue in cheek humor. It is oil on canvas, African mud cloth and printed fabric. And we have so much more to show by this beautiful artist with her razor sharp intellect and wit.
Amos is a painter, printer, master weaver, writer, teacher and photographer. She is a graduate of Antioch College in Ohio, and New York University. She worked for 8 years, weaving and designing for Dorothy Liebes and made prints with Leo Calapei and Bob Blackburn. She is Professor II and former Chair of the Visual Art Dept. at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the 1960’s Amos was the only woman and youngest member of Spiral, the group of black artists which included Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff.
Amos is the subject of an award-winning video hosted by Anna Deveare Smith, the recipient of many grants and her works are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum, The Newark Museum, the Library of Congress, and many others. She has been the Governor of the Skowhegan School in Maine since 1986, an editor and former president of Heresies Magazine, and a Trustee of the Florsheim Art Fund.
Artist Statement
These works show my love for New York’s music, dancers, and racial and social shenanigans while their color and action suggest chaos. These are memories of the South, music (particularly jazz, Latin, and Brazilian), sports and a tinge of our anxieties. These and all my works reflect my love for Atlanta, New York and this country. Even though most cities during my youth were segregated, the arts, schools and all smart creative people were my beacons. Atlanta was a good place for black people and big dreams, as it continues to be, as a major site for black colleges, businesses, artists, and smart political figures. Both of my college-educated parents had fathers who were born slaves. This made a good reason for my brother Larry, and me to believe that we had a great chance to excel, as our family has continuously moved up and on.