Amy Tavern in /digital room/


Note by Guest Juror Dorothy Santos
In Tavern’s mark-making, images, and video performance, I find a call to resist productivity–to produce value and capital. Rather, I find her work to be an invitation to revisit the moments between our actions that string together a day. I hear her quietly singing Happy Birthday, a song we associate in our contemporary and cultural moment with cleanliness as opposed to a celebration of life. She creates a new lexicon through an amalgamation of moments and my hope is the viewer accepts the invitation to witness these instances.


Artist Bio
Amy Tavern is an interdisciplinary artist. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with solo shows in the United States, Belgium, Sweden, and Iceland. She has taught and lectured across the US and in Europe, and her work as a metalsmith has been included in many publications, most notably, the cover of Metalsmith Magazine. A believer in phenomenology, Amy begins with direct experience and, although autobiographical, her work refers personal memory, emotion, and the passing of time. Using labor-intensive methods, Amy translates recollection through drawing, photography, sculpture, animation, and video.
Originally from Richfield Springs, New York, Amy holds a BA in Arts Administration from the State University of New York College at Fredonia, a BFA in Metal Design from the University of Washington, Seattle, and an MFA in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. In 2019, Amy celebrated two solo exhibitions and was chosen as one of five artists from Northern California for the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ program, Women to Watch. Amy is a former Penland School of Crafts resident artist and has completed numerous artist residencies in Iceland.
Amy lives and works in San Francisco, California.