Figurative Ceramic Sculptor…
Amanda Paoletti is a figurative ceramic sculptor of over thirty years. Her current works explore the human form using clay, oxides, cold wax and oil and various fired and cold finishes.
Her True Nature - Figurative Trees series explores narratives and the human form as vessel and vehicle - a hosting of energy, emotion and self - and ideas around becoming one with our surroundings. She describes this exploration as “an intentional blurring of distinctions between interior and exterior, illusion and truth”. This series of hand built figurative forms are usually headless with flamelike openings at the shoulders, necks and limbs, exposing their prosaic interiors. The forms stand erect and act as canvas for silhouetted images of trees, plants, patterned fauna and dappled sunlight, painted and vitrified in iron and velvety oxides over breasts, hips and navels. In her words, “The combination of these forms and images is a blurring of lines and barriers that define duality, ego and self, tendering inquiry of our inevitable mortal merging with the landscape”.
Her “the Faceted Figurative series is a much more personal exploration, which in her words, “is deeply rooted to who I am as a figurative artist… something I’ve explored since my youth and that I expect I will never tire of. It brings me closer to the essential essence of the human form and its’ gestural movement and draws heavily from an appreciation of classical figurative art.
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Biography:
Amanda began sculpting as a child, fashioning tiny creatures out of lumps of mud, play doh and paper mach'e paste. She discovered her love of clay at the age of sixteen in a figurative sculpture class at the Art Center at Glen Echo Park in Bethesda Maryland. Her formal studies began in 1987 at the Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art/MCA) in an immersive foundation program that combined an in depth exploration of 2 & 3 dimensional design with color theory, drawing and painting and a wide range of media based majors. Dabbling briefly in printmaking, jewelry and metal arts, it wasnt long before she landed full circle back in the ceramics department where she had begun her three dimensional journey. After completing the two year foundation program at MCA in 1989 she made a move west to California to continue her education with a major in ceramic sculpture at the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland (now California College of the Arts/CCA) - studying with bay area greats such as Viola Frey, Arthur Gonzales, Dennis Gallagher and Art Nelson.
In 2002 she moved with her family to the Sierra foothills and began a project to create and direct a community art center and teaching facility, now known as the Artists’ Studio in the Foothills (ASiF) Art Center, in Grass Valley, California, which opened it’s doors in 2009 and continues to thrive to this day.
More About ASiF Art Center:
In 2009 she began a project to open and direct a community art center and teaching facility in Grass Valley, California known as the Artists’ Studio in the Foothills (ASiF) Art Center. The facility offers private and shared studio space for visual artists, a beautiful light filled gallery for showcasing local and regional artists and media based instruction in ceramic sculpture, pottery, drawing, painting, printmaking, mosaics, jewelry and more. Now in it’s 14th year, ASiF is deeply rooted in its mission to nurture the creative spirit of its community. It has become a much loved arts mecca and educational facility for artists and students of all ages. Offering weekly meeting space for adult art classes and groups, in-school and after school art programs, field trips for local public and charter schools and summer art camps for kids of all ages - ASiF serves as a conduit for local and regional visual artists to support each other and themselves through teaching and selling - and through connection with the community at large.
