Everything in my practice starts with drawing. Whether I am drawing outside from nature or drawing a portrait from life, my drawing process is about presence, focus and engagement.
I regularly invite people to pose for me in my West Adams studio. My goal is always to record that person’s presence as they enter a meditative state posing for me over a period of hours or days. I am intrigued by bodies that have been lived in. My mark-making records a fleshy terrain whose contours are formed by experience and use in a similar way that a landscape carries the marks of time and use.
The Gallery Talk below was recorded at the opening for the show Perceive Me. The idea for the show was born out of a conversation with artist Kristine Schomaker while I was drawing her in 2019. That conversation inspired Kristine to pose for over 60 artists as an experiment in how others see her and Perceive Me came into being. This ground-breaking show about body image opened at Cal State LA in 2019 and will travel to Oxnard College in November 2020, Coastline Community College in January 2021, Mesa Community College San Diego in March 2021, The Lancaster Museum of Art & History in October 2021 and the College of the Sequoias in Visalia in 2022.
Video by LA Art Documents @LAartdocuments of Amanda Mears Artist talk at Cal State LA
Scroll down to see some other examples of my Figure As Landscape work. If you would like to pose for this project then please feel free to email me.
