#2 of 17 Swimming Pools [Divers] represents a novel beginning for the artist, who after working for seven years with an ongoing host of characters and elements, has pared down and redefined her focus in the following ways.
Focus #1: Less is more.
Focus #2: Textured emptiness: an elevated attention to paper and surface. Expanding upon her affinity for paper and process, amanze continues to play with the question of how to make structural drawings, one element of which, is giving weight to paper while maintaining its inherent properties. This work continues that research by layering multiple sheets of paper to create a single drawing, as well as coating the paper's surface with a palette knife and a combination of mediums, acrylics and varnishes.
Focus #3: An edited cohort of characters. The world amanze creates is a complex spatial negotiation between the paper, surface and a newly edited cohort namely: ada, audre (formerly ada the Alien and audre the Leopard), Bird and the inanimate characters -Swimming Pool, Moped, Window and Other Architectural References. amanze considers the configurations they arrive at to be non-narrative, fuelled instead by an interest in play, dance, magic and design.
ruby onyinyechi amanze (b. 1982, Port-Harcourt, Nigeria) is a visual artist who draws on paper. amanze's practice builds around questions of how to create large-scaled drawings that maintain paper's essence of weightlessness while simultaneously holding a multi-dimensional form or structure. #2 of 17 Swimming Pools [Divers] represents a novel beginning for the artist, who after working for seven years with an ongoing host of characters and elements, has pared down and redefined her focus in the following ways.
Focus #1: Less is more.
Focus #2: Textured emptiness: an elevated attention to paper and surface. Expanding upon her affinity for paper and process, amanze continues to play with the question of how to make structural drawings, one element of which, is giving weight to paper while maintaining its inherent properties. This work continues that research by layering multiple sheets of paper to create a single drawing, as well as coating the paper's surface with a palette knife and a combination of mediums, acrylics and varnishes.
Focus #3: An edited cohort of characters. The world amanze creates is a complex spatial negotiation between the paper, surface and a newly edited cohort namely: ada, audre (formerly ada the Alien and audre the Leopard), Bird and the inanimate characters -Swimming Pool, Moped, Window and Other Architectural References. amanze considers the configurations they arrive at to be non-narrative, fuelled instead by an interest in play, dance, magic and design.
#3&4 of 17 Swimming Pools [pool dance] forms part of a series of works on paper made by the artist in 2020. Through this body of work, amanze revisits a host of characters and elements found in her practice, refining and distilling them to their essence. Through a newly edited cohort of characters —ada, audre (formerly ada the Alien and audre the Leopard), Bird and the inanimate characters; Swimming Pool, Moped, Window and Other Architectural References—amanze considers new non-narrative configurations animated through play, dance, magic and design.
Expanding upon her affinity for paper and process, amanze continues to play with the question of how to make structural drawings, one element of which, is giving weight to paper while maintaining its inherent properties. This body of work continues that research by layering multiple sheets of paper to create a single drawing, as well as coating the paper’s surface with a palette knife and a combination of mediums such as acrylics and varnishes.