Amy Evans Streeter grew up in Houston, Texas, studied printmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and then floated around a bit before landing in Oxford, Mississippi, where she takes pictures and makes paintings. She came to Oxford to study the history and culture of the South, earning an MA in Southern Studies in 2003. She continued to create during this time, making paintings in between research and road trips.  Today, she paints in a small studio on the fourteen-acre homestead she shares with her husband, Kurt Streeter.  Kurt built a studio for her that's nestled comfortably in the woods and has a proper view of trees and critters.  When Amy isn't making paintings, she can be found traveling the South in search of meringue.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My paintings are like photographs: they document specific moments in time. But those moments live in my imagination and, of course, they are captured in paint.

It all starts with an object. I gravitate to examples of vintage advertising for their graphic qualities and reference to a particular era. To develop a composition, I combine seemingly unrelated objects in an effort to add unexpected meaning to the mundane and discover a larger narrative. Each item represents a singular moment, but when you combine objects, like combining words, they make sentences. And sentences need punctuation, which is one of the reasons that I incorporate commas and semi-colons into my work. They are at once a visual cue to the narrative and a compositional element that allows for the introduction of a simple but iconic graphic form.

With my current body of work, I am incorporating representations of various kinds of fabrics into the composition. The fabric is, in essence, another object. But it is also a way to further establish the moment I’m documenting through pattern. From Mexican oilcloth to hand-sewn quilts, the fabric helps to tell the story.

The illustration of these surreal little worlds comes naturally, and I enjoy adding one more layer of meaning to the resulting image by assigning these moments to people, usually women, incorporating old-fashioned names into the titles of the finished works. To me, the titles bring the narratives—the memories—to life.

I want the viewer to be inspired by these visual narratives, reacting to my work with an unexpected sense of wonder, adding to these objects and their stories with a story of their own. Or, perhaps, simply remembering.

AMY EVANS STREETER

Oxford, Mississippi

2011

* * *

*For more on why I like to paint food, check out this Nov. 2011 feature on Eatocracy, CNN's food blog.

GALLERY REPRESENTATION

Koelsch Gallery - Houston, TX

Gallery Point Leflore - Greenwood, MS

ARCHIVE OF OLD WORK