Amanda Chwelos
The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side
About the Artist
Amanda Chwelos is an artist living in Edmonton, Alberta. She received her diploma in Fine Arts from MacEwan University in 2017 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art & Design from the University of Alberta in 2019. Also in 2019, she was awarded the McLuhan House Artist Studio Residency. Upon finishing her year-long residency, she completed her first solo exhibition titled One or The Other or None of the Above. Her work has been featured in many group exhibitions including Imitation Crab at Parallel Space and Salvage at Lowlands Project Space. Chwelos’ current work explores banality and contemporary malaise through a practice based in painting and sculpture.
Instagram: @amandachwelos
Artist Statement
My current practice aims to understand the strangeness and banality of human plight through an exploration of everyday objects and figurative scenes. The work often exists in isolated or reflective moments of everyday life, playing off recognizable markers of contemporary culture that exist in either a nostalgic past or a familiar present. By framing my work within the familiar, I am trying to better understand my own place in our present cultural canon. Often referencing niche imagery such as Real Tree Camo or thrifted mugs from Value Village, I aim to unpack nuances within the mundane through a practice based in painting and sculpture. While the content is banal and seemingly flippant, it functions as an examination of contemporary malaise that I believe we all must eventually reckon with. Similar to the way one grapples conceptually with the malaise that this content presents, I, through the process of creating, grapple physically with the formal processes of painting and sculpting. Using abject characters and objects, I make fun of intense fears and emotions in an attempt to reconcile with anxieties felt within our current geological epoch. Consequently, these characters and objects become a vehicle for what is not outwardly visible but still present: humour, nihilism, and hope.
