Artist Statement:
Amy Elkins had plans to fly to Atlanta, GA to continue a portrait project she has been working with since 2016 in mid-March, but when all of her shoots were canceled due to the pandemic, she spontaneously turned to herself. She has produced a daily portrait since March 30th, all but one leading to mid-June when she moved, were taken inside of 340-square-foot apartment she lived in alone. These portraits were only made possible by moving her couch every day to make room against a white wall. As the months passed, her living situation shifted from one form of isolation to another but her process remained the same.
She describes the process:
"I wake up, have a cup of coffee and immediately look around my apartment for things I can use for my portrait. These have shifted as the duration of Covid blurs into an unknown stretch of time. At first they were armor-like costumes, often made of common household items ranging from potholders, tinfoil, dish towels and toilet paper to art supplies I had on hand or acted as evidence of the consumption taking place when stuck indoors indefinitely... Amazon packaging, takeout bags and trash left over from groceries purchased and consumed. In the beginning, I often tried to cover as much of my body and face as possible to make commentary on my fear of the virus and my efforts to guard against it. As the months passed the portraits became less about those fears and more about confronting the anxieties, grief, complexities and fatigue of being in indefinite isolation during a global pandemic. My working title for this ongoing series (170+ days and counting) is Anxious Pleasures. "
Biography:
Amy Elkins is a visual artist currently based in the Bay Area. She works primarily in photography and has spent the past fifteen years researching, creating and exhibiting work that explores the multifaceted nature of masculine identity as well as the psychological and sociological impacts of incarceration. Her approach is series-based, steeped in research and oscillates between formal, conceptual and documentary.
Elkins received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and is currently an MFA candidate in the Art Practice program at Stanford University. She has been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally, including at The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA; Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, Austria; the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; North Carolina Museum of Art; among others. Her first book Black is the Day, Black is the Night won the 2017 Lucie Independent Book Award. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Mack First Book Award and the 2016 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Prize as well as listed as one of the Best Photobooks of 2016 by TIME, Humble Arts Foundation, Photobook Store Magazine and Photo-Eye among others.
Elkins co-founded Women in Photography (WIPNYC) with Cara Phillips in 2008. The primarily internet-based project showcases the work of lens-based women artists outside of the traditional model of the commercial art world. Since its inception, Women in Photography has awarded over seventeen thousand dollars in grants to artists and has collaborated with Aperture Foundation, LACMA, MoCP, Leslie Tonkonow, Lightwork, P.P.O.W Gallery, Humble Arts Foundation and many independent women curators.
website: amyelkins.com
instagram: @thisisamyelkins
instagram: @wipnyc