_The Polaroid Party // Amanda Means

Amanda Means was raised in a small Upstate New York farming community. She came to New York City over twenty-five years ago. Her artwork reflects a sense of nature in this crowded, urban environment. Initially, Means photographed tangles of underbrush in the countryside and printed the results in her lower Manhattan darkroom. The tangles represented the chaotic environment that surrounded her. Now Means continues to explore the duality of natural and human built environments by photographing light bulbs. She explores how the mysterious presence of natural forces can be found even in these little, mass produced, industrial objects.

Education includes BA Cornell University, 1969; MFA, SUNY Buffalo (Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N.Y.), 1978.

Selected collections include Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Avon Collection of Women Photographers, NYC; Robinson and Nancy Grover Collection, Hartford, CT; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, England; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC.

One person exhibitions include Harvard Museum of Natural History, (2009, 2008); Gallery 339, Philadelphia (2008, 2006); Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston (2000, 2003, 2009); Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC (1998, 2001);Metta Galeria, Madrid, Spain (1999); Gremillion Co., Houston, Texas (1998); Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middlebury, CT (1983).

Group exhibitions include The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2006); Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC (1997, 2000, 2004); Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY (2003); Pamela Auchincloss Project Space (2001); Islip Art Museum, Baldwin, NY (2001); Richard Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY (1999); Zelda Cheatle Gallery, London (1999); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (1999); Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY (1999); Dorsky Gallery, NYC (1999); Pace University Gallery, Pleasantville, NY (1999); International Center of Photography, NYC (1997); Yezerski Gallery, Boston, MA

Teaching and lecturing includes SUNY Plattsburgh (1989); Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC, Canada (1992); University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada (1992); St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY (1999); International Center of Photography, NY, NY (2000); Parsons School of Design, NY, NY (2001); University of Memphis, Memphis, TN (2001); Pratt Institute, NY, NY (2002).

Publications include The New York Times (November 2006); The New York Times (October 2005); Exploring Color Photography, McGraw-Hill, (2004); pdn (2004); 2wice Magazine, GLOW (2002); Harry Abrams, Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde -- The New Wave in Old Processes (2002); Oprah Magazine, The Brain (2002); Harper's Magazine (1998); New Yorker Magazine ( 2001).

Related professional experience includes Contributing Editor to BOMB Magazine (1985 - present); Master black and white photographic printer specializing in oversize prints (1985 - 1995). Printing clients include Robert Mapplethorpe, Roni Horn, Smithsonian Institution and Petah Coyne. Trustee, The John Coplans Trust (2003 - ). Nominee Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2005). Represented in New York City by Ricco/Maresca Gallery (1998 – present). Lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, NY.