Amanda Case Millis

My oil paintings are visual stories about my personal relationship to place. Painting is how I process the world and expand my understanding of myself and surroundings. Light is frequently at the center of my exploration. Alla prima painting and plein air work are integral to my practice. They keep me alert and awake. The work has often been small scale, holding the intimacy of my experience of looking and responding. I am also interested in making large-scale paintings that function as meditations upon place and create an immersive experience in relationship to the human body.

I feel most alive when I work in collaboration with the elements or as I experience and express the feeling of an environment. There are certain times when the impulse to translate is high:

When I feel the quiet and then the buzz of electricity as a storm rolls in.

When the light is alive as day slips into night.

When the fog hangs heavy in the air, obscuring and revealing the landscape in new ways.

When the light slants in a room just so.

When an uprooted tree breaks out of the earth, more animated than those standing politely in its company.

When the sun dances wildly though the woods.

When I stumble upon mysterious visual moments that demand painting.

I will often paint or collage a motif through several iterations, over subsequent days, months or even years, to deepen my understanding of the subject. Recurring motifs include interiors, nocturnes, windows, roots and trees, and the sea.

As I work, whether it is from life or memory and photographs, I integrate my physical observations with my interior feelings – translating the seen and felt into a language of shape and color.