Amy Jenkins | |
---|---|
Born | 1966 (age 57–58) |
Nationality | American |
Education | Colorado College, School of Visual Arts, New York |
Known for | Multimedia, Video, Photography |
Website | amyjenkins |
Amy Jenkins (born 1966) is an American artist from Peterborough, New Hampshire who is recognized for her work in video installation and experimental film.
Early life and education
Jenkins was born in Springfield, Illinois. She earned her BA degree in Fine Art at Colorado College in 1988 with a Minor in Italian and Cinema Studies. In 1990, she obtained an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, New York. She has a son named Elias
Work
Jenkins is best known for her multidisciplinary installations that combine video, audio, sculpture, and performance to create immersive environments. Familial relationships, home, sexuality, and the male/female identity are the recurrent themes of her intimate, visceral, and often personal, narratives. Jenkins was one of the initial artists in the early 1990s to use video sculpture to create intimate artworks that belie their technology. In her investigations of female identity, miniature objects have played a vital role in Jenkins' videos and multimedia installations. In her video installation Ebb (1996), Jenkins projects an image of a female bathing in red water—suggesting blood—onto a tiny claw-foot tub on the top of a ceramic-tiled pedestal. As the video progresses, the water in the tub gradually becomes clear, creating the surprisingly realistic illusion that the blood is unnaturally seeping back into her body—a reversal of the menstrual cycle.
Jenkins' short experimental films, such as "Audrey Samsara,"(2005) "Audrey Superhero" (2010) and "Becoming" (2013) feature the artist's children. Personal narrative, gender identity and the parent-child relationship are themes that continue in her oeuvre. Jenkins' initial documentary feature, titled "Instructions on Parting" (2018) was screened at various festivals, including the Museum of Modern Art's Doc Fortnight, the Montclair Film Festival, the Independent Film Festival Boston, the Sydney Film Festival, and DOXA. Jenkins' more recent short film, "Wishes," premiered at the Camden International Film Festival in 2019 and was exhibited at several other festivals, including Salem, Ashland Independent, Frameline, OutfestLA, Sidewalk, NewFest, and New Orleans, among others.
Jenkins has exhibited internationally. She has had solo shows at: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, GA; the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, VT; Sioux City Art Center, IA, and John Michael Kohler Arts Center, WI. Her museum group exhibitions include: Stop. Look. Listen, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; Mixed Emotions, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel; Video Art/Video Culture, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Aquaria, Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria; New Video Artists, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, TN; Video Jam, Palm Beach ICA, FL; Threshold, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, VA; Current Undercurrent: Working in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY.
Grants and awards
Jenkins' work has been funded by grants from: New Hampshire State Council for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Jerome Foundation, the Experimental Television Center, the Berkshire Taconic A.R.T. Fellowship, and Aaron Siskind Foundation. Her residencies include: Harvestworks Media Artist-in-Residence in NY; an NEA-sponsored Fellowship & residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VA, and residencies at MacDowell Colony, NH; Yaddo, Saratoga, NY; Djerassi, CA and Light Work, Syracuse, NY. In 2022-23, Jenkins served as a Harvard Film Study Center - Flaherty Fellow.
Awards
- 2018 Best Feature Documentary award for "Instructions on Parting," Athens International Film and Video Festival
- 2018 Filmmaker of the Year, New Hampshire Film Festival
- 2019 Ewing Award for Interdisciplinary Art
Jenkins has also been nominated twice for the CalArts Alpert Award in Film/Video.
Collections
Her work is included in the public collections of:
- Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
- Akron Art Museum Akron, OH
- Wake Forest University#Arts, Wake Forest, NC
- Light Work, Syracuse, NY
References
- "Amy Jenkins". Light Work Collection. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
- "Amy Jenkins CV" (PDF). Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: Feminist Art Base. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "Amy Jenkins biography". amyjenkins.net. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "Art; Evoking the Fitful Passage to Womanhood". The New York Times. 1998-05-10. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
- "Nurture - Video and Photography by Amy Jenkins". ATHICA. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- Rush, Michael. New Media in Late 20th-Century Art. Thames and Hudson, 1999, ISBN 0500203296
- "Ebb". 2008-03-30. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- Cullum, Jeremy (2010-02-15). "Nurture: Amy Jenkins at ATHICA". BurnAway. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- ^ Russell, Cozette. "Amy Jenkins". The Film Study Center at Harvard University. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
- ^ "Amy Jenkins". Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: Feminist Art Base. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "Amy Jenkins, Video Installation Artist, Peterborough, NH". New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Art Arts & Artists. 2006-07-26. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- Amy Jenkins' two-channel video installation "Shelter for Daydreaming", 2000, VHS, can be found in the Experimental Television Center and its Repository in the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University Library.
- "2023 Fellows". Flaherty. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
- "Shelter for Daydreaming - Video". Johnson Museum of Art. 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "Amy Jenkins". Collection - Akron Art Museum. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "UAC - Student Union Collection of Contemporary Art". Wake Forest University. 2009. Archived from the original on 2013-12-30. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
- "Light Work Permanent Collection". Retrieved 2014-02-18.
Further reading
- Rush, Michael (2005). New Media in Art. London, England: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500203781
- Inselmann, Andrea (2007). Stop.Look.Listen. Ithaca, NY: Herbert Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. ISBN 9781934260036