Artist Statement:
Water. Dead Friends. Alive Friends. Friends that struggle. Uncles. Aunts. Ancestors. Water. People with Cancer. People with Altzeimers. Homesickness. Lovers. More Water. More Water. More Water. Wood. Rooting. Community. Driftwood. Water. Growth. Fresh Water. Feet. Clay. Earth. Sinking. Etched things. Changed things. You. Me.
Often, the first thing people learn about me is where I am from. Most of the time, I feel displaced living on the East Coast. As an artist from Cleveland, Ohio inherently informs the way I think in general, but more specifically being from the Lake Erie coastline. It informs how I reckon with grief, deal with lost people, lost home, feelings of displacement, grief of myself (for myself), or create memorials for my life so far. I hold what I like to call "secondhand memories" in my hands, eyes, ears, feet, nose, stomach, and spine. I recount experiences, things seen, and create metaphors for my body in unexpected places. I think about erosion. We lose pieces of ourselves along the way and have to ask, “What do I do with all of this grief?” “Who am I now that I wasn’t before?” “Who was I then that I cannot be now?”
I want to experience the non-linear feeling of memory and loss of memory through the making of my work, and hope to share that experience with my audience. I am able to relive moments in this way. Maybe we can share in that feeling somehow.
Artist Bio:
Amelia McDonnell is a Printmaker and a Ceramic Artist from Cleveland, Ohio currently living and working in Boston, MA. Her background in biological sciences draws her to the alchemic environment that clay and print-media provide. McDonnell is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Massachusetts College of Art & Design in both Fine Arts 2D and 3D. She has worked as a course assistant in a number of courses including Ceramic Handbuilding, Intro to Printmaking, and Image and Clay. She is passionate about community engagement at MassArt and serves as a Student Government Representative for the Printmaking Department and Clay for Change, a student service club through MassArt Ceramics, along with working as a Studio Monitor in the MassArt Print Shop. She has designed and led workshops in partnership with MassArt Sustainability programming focused on sustainable practices in the printmaking field. She has been awarded the Boston Printmakers Award in the 2024 Boston Printmakers Student Exhibition, The George Nick Prize, and varied Departmental Awards within the MassArt Printmaking Department. She works in two-dimensional and three-dimensional media in order to communicate themes of erosion, memory, memory loss, and ancestral ties, aiming to place the viewer's senses within that place of feeling.