About the Work
Amie Esslinger is an Atlanta based visual artist whose work explores how complexity emerges in a physical world. Drawn to unseen processes that have large-scale ramifications, the world of microbiology provides an aesthetic foundation to much of her work. This is a world in which genes mutate, cells divide and die, and viruses co-opt other cells. It is also a world where pandemics spread, species proliferate, and intelligence evolves. Although not representing biological categories literally, her work unfurls the hidden drama by emphasizing the activity of cellular interaction. Esslinger strives to create a static theater of hyper-activity, mimicking the world around and within us; a world about which we are thoroughly dependent, yet, largely unaware.
Throughout her childhood, Esslinger was immersed in the rich traditions and visual oddities of the self-taught art world of the rural north Georgia (USA) mountains. Concurrently, she encountered an array of shamanism and other metaphysical eccentricities. While the vibrant palettes and the DIY-with-whatever-you-can-find of her upbringing still resonate and profoundly influence her work, spiritual motifs do not. Instead, the natural world grounds and motivates Esslinger’s art practice.
Esslinger experiments with material, scale, and pattern to illuminate tensions between order and disorder, processes and things. She blurs the distinction between observable and unobservable, and suggests dynamics between living and non-living systems. Her meticulous arrangement of material stresses the physicality of her worlds, a physicality from which higher-order complexities emerge. The abstract biomorphs and hyper-palettes portray the energy and dynamism of biological processes and systems. By interjecting activity not visible to the human eye into the space of the gallery, Esslinger’s work draws the viewer in to experience promiscuous patterns of repetition and mutation constituting the reality of the aesthetic object. Drawing on experience with ceramics, fabric, and sculpture, her paintings and distinctive mixed-media installations result in a textured, hyper-patterned reverie revealing the latent vibrancy and possibilities hidden in the microscopic structure of the physical world.
Esslinger received her BFA with a concentration in drawing and painting from Georgia State University in 2008. She has shown in galleries throughout Atlanta, including, The World Unseen: Intersections of Art and Science at the David J. Sencer Centers for Disease Control Museum: In Association with the Smithsonian Institution and the current exhibit And I Must Scream: The Monstrous Expression of our Global Crises at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. She has been a resident of Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Hambidge Center in Rabun, Georgia.
CV
AWARDS / RESIDENCIES
2021
Edge Award, Forward Arts Foundation
2019
Antinori Visual Artist Grant, Idea Capital Atlanta
2017
Yaddo, Artists’ Fellowship, Saratoga Springs, NY
The Hambidge Center, Artist Residency, Rabun Gap, GA
EXHIBITIONS
2022
And I Must Scream: The Monstrous Expression of our Global Crises, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University
2019
Difficult Places (solo exhibition), University of South Carolina Beaufort
The World Unseen: Intersections of Art and Science, David J. Sencer CDC Museum in Association with the Smithsonian Institution, Atlanta, GA
Trio – Traveling exhibit of art, music, and literature in association with the Southern Independent Bookstore Alliance
2018
Little Things Mean a Lot, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Art Papers 19th Annual Art Auction (invitation only), Atlanta, GA
2017
Hambidge Art Auction (invitation only), Atlanta, GA
Art Papers 18th Annual Art Auction (invitation only), Atlanta, GA
Burnaway Art Crush Auction (invitation only), Atlanta, GA
2016
Hot Combos, Hathaway Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
Systems (two person exhibition), Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2014
Little Things Mean a Lot, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2007
Kojo Griffin Selects - Student Juried Exhibition, Ernest G. Welch Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006
M.U.T.E.D. - collaboration with Craig Dongoski, Ernest G. Welch Gallery, Atlanta, GA
EDUCATION
2008
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA - BFA Drawing and Painting
2005
Santa Reparata ISA, Florence, Italy - Summer Printmaking Studio
PUBLICATIONS
2019
Breedlove, B., & Weber, J. (2019). Difficult Places, Unexpected Discoveries. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 25(7), 1440-1441.
https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2507.ac2507
2017
Interview - Art the Science. “Creators – Amie Esslinger.” January 4, 2017.
https://artthescience.com/blog/2017/01/04/creators-amie-esslinger/
2016
Butler, Jared. “Amie Esslinger & Lauren Peterson at Swan Coach House Gallery.” Burnaway. September 7, 2016.
http://burnaway.org/review/amie-esslinger-and-lauren-michelle-peterson/
McClintock, Dinah. “”Systems” at Swan Coach House is a Systematic Exploration of Art-Making.” ArtsATL. August 22, 2016.
http://artsatl.com/systems-swan-coach-house/
Feaster, Felicia. “Hidden Worlds are Concern of Two Atlanta Artists.” Atlanta Journal Constitution. August 19, 2016.