Amy Sol’s “Smoke & Water” opens at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery on December 6th in Italy. With her show still being about 2 weeks away, fans of Amy Sol’s work are on the edge of their seats. Luckily, Amy has been keeping us in the loop through her blog.

We know that many of you can’t get enough of Amy so we asked her some questions. Here is an excerpt from the interview where she talks a little about one of her pieces:

“there is a lot of water and unpredictability.. alot of popping and flowing and semi-destruction. just like in a dream, you eventually wake up…”

More after the jump.


Arrested Motion (AM): Although you typically work with paint on wood panels, it looks like you are very comfortable working on cotton for this show. How does working on cotton compare to working on wood.

Amy Sol (AS): it’s faster to work on cotton because i go into it with the intent to use a few layers as opposed to dozens. i used watercolors and graphite before so this isn’t entirely new to me but i do feel a closer bond to the mediums than before.

i love painting on wood and really missed it the last few months, but it was good change of pace for me. i wanted to do illustration based work for a while now and saw this as the perfect opportunity.

AM: For each of the 15 pieces, you selected drawings that originated from your last three years of studies. Can you pick a piece and give us a little insight on the ideas behind it?

AS: Here are a few sketches that prelude “lullaby nets”

AS: when I catalog ideas, i’ll sketch it out like a story board..usually very fast so they tend to come out sloppy. for most of the pieces i gathered ideas that went together and arranged them in a way, to make them more complete. i can’t say these come right from a dream because i find it impossible to replicate a dream. they are more like simplified abstractions, or the underlying essence.

in these scenes there is a lot of water and unpredictability.. alot of popping and flowing and semi-destruction. but it’s never a bad destruction because things always grow back. just like in a dream, you eventually wake up.. and when things die, things grow back. i think that’s what this one’s about.

AM: You plan on taking a little break from painting after your “Smoke & Water” exhibit. What do you plan on doing with all this free time?

AS: i will take a few weeks from painting after dec 5th. i can really focus on just ideas when i’m not immersed in a project. so a few weeks without painting will be good. i’ll probably be sketching since i have to start some large works due toward the end of 09.. but i don’t consider the sketching work 😉

Discuss this show here
Discuss Amy Sol here