Kalliope Amorphous
Kalliope Amorphous | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1978 (age 47–48) Providence, Rhode Island, United States |
| Occupations | Artist, photographer |
| Website | kalliopeamorphous |
Kalliope Amorphous (born 1978)[1] is an American interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media, including photography, poetry, performance art, and olfactory art. She is primarily known for her conceptual self portraits. She lives and works in New York City.[2]
Style
[edit | edit source]Amorphous uses in-camera effects, modified lenses, mirrors, and handmade camera attachments. Her style, as she describes it, is conceptual photography with an emphasis on pictorialism and surrealism.[3] Acting as her own model, she explores the meaning of identity by assuming different roles.[4] Amorphous has stated that the "study of consciousness"[5] and the concept of duende[6] are primary influences in her work. She has also cited butoh as an influence.[7]
Overview
[edit | edit source]Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Amorphous attended high school in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Upon graduating, she moved to New York City, where she experimented with modeling, acting, and performance poetry. In a 2008 interview with art critic Brian Sherwin, she cited her early social involvement in the New York City theater and cabaret scenes as influences in her early photographic work.[8]
A self-taught photographer, Amorphous began working exclusively with self-portrait photography while living in Rhode Island in 2007. Her early self-portraits focused on character studies, costuming, and makeup.[5]
Amorphous' 2009 Resurrecting Ophelia series of self-portraits cast her as the fictional character Ophelia. Like much of her later work, the series relied on in-camera effect with Amorphous positioned behind glass, acrylic, and textiles.[9] The series was exhibited in Amorphous' hometown in a solo exhibition at the Community College of Rhode Island[citation needed] and appeared in print in the premier issues of Dark Beauty magazine[10] and The Omen Magazine.[11]
In 2011, Amorphous was named in GLAAD's annual Top 100 Artists.[1] She received honorable mention for the Julia Margaret Cameron Award in the category of street photography from The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards.[12]
Amorphous's recent projects use distortion mirror boards created with reflective material. In her series Glass Houses, she appears in a series of surreal and distorted self-portraits which look as if they were submerged in water.[13] Of the series, Lancia Trendvisions wrote: "The mirror is just a surface. Exactly like the photographs that portray it. They cannot depict what is hidden under their patina: the distortions of our fears, the destructuring push of our desires. But photographer Kalliope Amorphous searches for just that impalpable spirit."[14] In her distorted self-portraits, Amorphous explores what she calls "the fluid nature of identity".[15]
In addition to self-portraits, Amorphous began working with glitch art in 2013. In 2014, she completed a series of experimental photographs of performance artist Marina Abramović.[16] Amorphous appears opposite Matthew Avedon in the music video Savage Way to Live for the Brooklyn-based band Relations.[17]
In 2015, her short film Contrast And Time was included in the Forever Now Project exhibited at Mona Foma.[18] Forever Now was an international project in response to the Voyager records of 1977, and culminated in a golden record containing 44 artists.[19][20]
Since 2016, Amorphous has been documenting the people and landmarks in her neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City in a series of street photographs. She is one of few female street photographers working in the genre.[21][22][23][24]
During the 2016 Presidential election, Amorphous endorsed candidate Hillary Clinton and completed a series of fine art photographs of Clinton on the campaign trail.[25][26]
In 2019, a 3D Virtual Exhibition of some of her works from her series Glass Houses was published as part of the permanent exhibitions in the TOROSIETE Museum of Contemporary Art.[27]
Perfume brand
[edit | edit source]Amorphous is the founder and perfumer behind the indie perfume house Black Baccara.[28][29] She founded the brand in 2010.[30] The house specializes in artisan perfume oils and Eau de Parfums[31] with themes similar to those Amorphous works with in her visual art.[32]
References
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- ^ "Kalliope Amorphous Photography: Conceptual Pictorial Self Portraits". Astrum People. Retrieved April 22, 2014
- ^ "Kalliope Amorphous". Dazed, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2014
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- ^ "Hauntingly Beautiful Self-Portraits: Resurrecting Ophelia". My Modern Met. Retrieved April 23, 2014
- ^ Dark Beauty Magazine, Issue I, August 2010. Dark Beauty. Retrieved April 22, 2014
- ^ The Omen Magazine, Issue 1, 2010. The Omen Magazine. Retrieved April 22, 2014
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- ^ "Submerged Self Portraits: 'Glass Houses' by Kalliope Amorphous Uses Distortion Mirrors To Mesmerize". TrendHunter. Retrieved April 23, 2014
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- ^ "Relations Band film Page" Relations. Retrieved April 23, 2014 Archived April 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
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- ^ "[1] Archived July 19, 2019, at the Wayback Machine"TOROSIETE Museum of Contemporary Art, Kalliope Amorphous
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Official website
- Kalliope Amorphous at AFK Gallery Archived April 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
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