Amy Dury
Amy draws inspiration from still images in a distinctly innovative practice largely shaped by a strong sense of colour and her background as a printmaker.
As a painter, Amy extracts figures from photographs from the pre-digital age as a starting point.
These can be found family photographs or home movies. Watching these personal films, she instinctively stops them on frames that resonate. These images often relate to peoples roles in society, the hierarchies and dynamics of power.
There is a strong idea of colour to begin, using both oil and acrylic paint, alongside charcoal and pencil drawings. Her background as a printmaker informs her use of layers and structure, yet she allows the process to move and evolve the work as it is constructed. Loose and textured painterly marks exist alongside more precise detail. Her strong grounding in portrait and figure drawing gives freedom to describe or suggest.
Looking back into our recent past is an act of remembering and nostalgic mis-remembering, with photographs and film becoming the vehicle which constructs stories about ourselves. Figures are often rewritten or falling from clear view. Our history instructs, seduces and tethers us, and Amy uses paint to examine these emotive memories which reflect current themes and tensions in contemporary life.
