Amy Shackleton
Amy Shackleton paints post-industrial worlds that form healthy, sustainable visions of the future. Shackleton recognizes the need for collaboration between urban and rural environments and uses various techniques/media to juxtapose urban expansion and scientific progress with the ecological reality of our shrinking resources.
Working from her own photography, Shackleton captures images throughout her travels within the city of Toronto and abroad (New York, Florida and as far as Eastern Europe). She digitally alters, transforms and combines these photographs to form her initial design. Shackleton builds her paintings with layers of calculated brushwork and spontaneous liquid drips. Using acrylic washes, erratic paint drips, shiny enamel and hard-edge details Shackleton juxtaposes representation/abstraction, urban/rural, gloss/matte and design/spontaneity to accentuate the plurality of landscapes in the city.
Shackleton's paintings suggest vibrant possibilities for our urban landscape and pose solutions to contemporary behavior. She brings interdependent elements together to form unique and dynamic environments that ask us to re-imagine the possibilities for our urban landscape.
