
Amy Davis
Artist and Educator
E: amydavisphotography@gmail.com
Artist Statement
I am interested in using photography, video, and media to explore how identity is expressed and curated for social media. TheA camera is a tool by which we can invent an image of ourselves, and social media is howthe method by which we can project these "'inventions"' to many a significant number of strangers. We have been sharing self-constructed narratives about our assumed characters since the advent of photography.
My past installations and video projects have focused on how we curate identity for social media. Social media enforces people's desire to look at others and be looked at. Images are no longer housed in private photo albums but online for a greater viewing audience. We look at pictures of others to better learn how to take photographs of ourselves.
As curator Sandra S. Phillip wrote in the catalogue to the show Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870, "Human hunger for seeing the forbidden has not changed. The technologies to facilitate it havehas.".
My project, "Inference," is a voyeuristic investigation of the information conveyed about personal identity based on the photographic images people take and share with others. This multi-component interactive projected installation explores our fascination with peeking into the lives of others and how we assess make assessments about a stranger's character, disposition, and interpersonal relationships through collections of images taken of them or by them. Designed as an interactive wall projection controlled by a cell phone, cCellular cCharacterizations are 6x6 foot photo mosaic portraits comprising composed of the entirety of a subject's images and text messages stored on their phone. Every subject surrendered their phone to me, allowing me to extract a complete, uncurated inventory of every photo they took or received or text message they saved on their phone. Each of these images becomes an element in a mosaic portrait of the person, assigning photos based on the different tonalities of a person's visage. Using a cellphone to mirror its display for the projection, the viewer can zoom into the mosaic to view each image or read each text message. These projected portraits are a modern-day equivalent of peeking through a person's diary. These mosaic portraits resembled each person's the likenesses of each person with the color palette and content from everything stored on their phone.
My current photo and video project, "Assimilation," stemming from my relationship with my husband, focuses on the dual nature of identity, particularly for immigrants who moved to America. This project looks into the personal struggles of immigrants as they shift their cultural identities to adopt the American lifestyle and the guilt experienced as they begin to create new traditions from their homelands. With a focus on immigrants who marry outside their culture, I seek to use photography and video as a tools to explore these shifting cultural identities and traditions.
CV
Education
2014 MFA (Photography Video and Related Media)
School of Visual Arts – New York, NY
2006 BA (Journalism and English)
Michigan State University – East Lansing, MI
Exhibitions & Festivals
ARTIST
2022
Society for Photographic Education’s
10th Annual Combined Caucus Exhibition June, 2022
The Ephemeral and the Evanescence, Rome Italy July, 2022
2021
Restructuring, Flint MI May, 2021
2020
Screens, Flint, MI February 2020
2018
Solo show, Eagle Monk Gallery
Emerging Artist, East Lansing Art Festival
2016
The Cat Show, PH21 Gallery May 2016
2015
Group Session, Bushwick Open Studios June 2015
2014
Spring and Rebirth, Maison de Santé Saint-Paul 10/19-October 2014
SVA MFA Photo & Related Media Thesis show, SVA Gallery, New York, NY 6/14- 6/28
Presence, SVA Galley, New York, NY (opens May 28th)
PDN 2014 Photo Annual Award recipient
Salon Show, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2013
Curate NYC, Gallery Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY
Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year 1, Industry City, Brooklyn, NY (http://cometogethersandy.com)
Interior Motives, SVA Gallery, New York, NY
The Artist Catalogue, Volume 2 Issue 2
Street Shots/NYC, Seaport Museum, New York, NY
2012
Benefit Auction, NURTUREart, Brooklyn, NY
Souls, SVA Gallery, New York, NY
CURATOR
2018
Fantastic Impossibilities: A Remix of Dysfunction
Mixed-media show on for Flint’s Artwalk on the subjects of American popular culture and self-identification and representations
Publications
2016
Aint-Bad Magazine
Mashable
Design Taxi
AOL
Copycat: Pop Culture Parodies
2014
PDN Photo Annual
2013
The Artist Catalogue. Volume 2. Issue 2
All the Best, Alice
2012
All the Best, Alice
Lansing State Journal