Amanda Sage – Portraits to Infinite Possibilities

Mar 1, 2010 Daniel Mirante in Articles, Interviews 3 Comments Tags: Amanda Sage

The art of Amanda Sage portrays in great style both the ‘everyday’ and multidimensional aspect of humanness in harmonious balance. Her skills in portraiture serve as the scaffolding for transpersonal energies and realms, depicted in a manner containing both energetic depth and strongly contemporary resonance.

A relatively young artist, Sage has travelled widely across Indonesia, Europe and the United States, and studied with master teachers such as Ernst Fuchs. Having developed a strong studio practice, Sage has developed her painterly technique alongside a continuing blossoming and honing of theme and style.

Currently in artists residence at The Hive gallery, L.A, Amanda Sage generously shares her energies to discuss recent developments in her art life with LILA.

Daniel Mirante
Thankyou for taking the time to engage in this interview. Could you tell us a bit about the significance of the egg motif that recurs in your work ?

Amanda Sage
The form of the Egg came to me in 2006, when I went on a 2 month painting sabbatical to Bali Indonesia. It had been 6 years since I had been to Bali, this trip being the 7th time I’d been there since 1996. I was at a turning point in many ways in my work and self, looking for reflection and new lenses thru which to express. I remember doing a small drawing looking to meld in some visual simplistic way, the three major locations on the planet that I had lived and felt influenced and connected too. Colorado, Bali and Vienna (they coincidentally also make a pretty good triangle on the globe). I had reduced them down to the primary colors of red, yellow and blue – trying to make some sort of sense of this balance I was observing, but still feeling uncomfortable and unclear in how I should paint this feeling I had, it being abstract in a sense and very personal.

One of the first paintings I did in Bali came completely out of the subconscious. I just started painting and went with the forms that developed. This painting became ‘Dreams’ and in it appeared a mystical snake with eyes on it’s scales and in it’s mouth it held an egg.

This is where the egg came into the picture, and it baffled me how it was exactly what I was looking for. The most reduced organic form, where in I could feel safe, indestructible and unique. New birth and new beginning in each piece, and it dawned on me that I could be painting eggs for the rest of my life. They became portals, doorways, something that I could put anything into and it wasn’t an oval, circle, square or rectangle – it was in itself the symbol of new life. As time progresses I am still painting ‘Eggs’ and long from being finished with them. I hope to paint them large enough to feel like one could step inside. I feel intuitively that this form is something so deeply imbedded in nature, as nothing is completely symmetrical. The term ‘organic symmetry’ seems to sum up this natural flow of multi-dimensions in these pieces. They have a language to them that hopefully speaks to a deeper level of our consciousness; calming, harmonizing and healing. (although not all of my ‘eggs’ are with the intent of healing, some I do just to see what will happen, and as we are all made up of dichotomies, some may seem brighter and with more intent then others.

Daniel Mirante
Has transition to America effected the theme and content of your work ? If so in what way ?

Amanda Sage
Yes I’m sure it has. Although I see myself being ever more a global citizen, my concentration is currently more focused in Los Angeles and the U.S. at the moment. I feel more empowered about the purpose of my work by coming here at this current time. That it goes so much further beyond creating aesthetic or even ‘new’ work in the eyes of the Art World. I feel a deeper calling to be more conscious about the current awakening that is direly needed in this world to transform into a global sustainable culture. Being in down town L.A, I feel I am at one of the epicenters of a new world. In the midst of the twirling thoughts of 13 million denizens, a massive piece of machinery hurtling towards what? There seems to be others that also are feeling called upon to bring balance and light. And I feel like I’ve fallen straight into a nest of these visionaries since being in L.A. The fragility of being on the ‘front’ so to say, is feeding the vision, keeping one on their toes – I find it totally exhilarating to be here at this point in history.

Daniel Mirante
You are an artist in residency at the HIVE. Could you tell us a bit about your art there and what projects you’ve been involved in ?

Amanda Sage
The HIVE is an amazing collaborative of Artists and creators, under the umbrella of Nathan Cartwright who is the owner and curator of the gallery. ‘Resident’ artists have honey comb spaces in the second half of the gallery, each renting out their spaces monthly with the freedom to create and exhibit what they want from their invidivual spaces. I arrived in a whirlwind of colleague visionaries for the ‘Temple of Visions – International Visionary Art’ show that premiered in January 09 at for the HIVE’s featured show, curated and conceptualized by L.A. artist Jimmy Bleyer. Being able to fly out for the opening of the show – blew open doors that I was not quite expecting. Over 600 people came to the opening and my piece ‘The Oracle sold’ before the show even opened. The response and enthusiasm that I experienced about my work really blew me away, I felt a strange familiar resonance with the HIVE and the whole artist infested building above it, that just goes by ‘725’, and had a little moment with the Universe and asked for it to give me some more clear signs in the ensuing few days, and if I should be here, I will come.

So low and behold I am working and living in the historic ‘725 Spring St’ building planting seeds and watching them grow in downtown L.A. with my artist and visionary yogi neighbors, such as Cheri Rae who is in the midst of building ‘PEACE’ a huge yoga and art studio down the street. Thrust into pre-destined projects and fate of finding, cultivating and creating new sustainable life in the midst of the concrete jungles. ‘You can’t get any further west from here, this is the final frontier’… said a fellow visionary artist that I’ve met here and greatly respect, Christopher Ulrich. Being the new girl on the block, I’m getting offers to participate in shows left and right, it’s hard to keep up with it all! Half of the shows are elsewhere on this continent and I find myself not having enough work to share in all these simultaneous shows!, but I love the challenge and am so inspired to be apart of the collective exhibitions and creating a larger awareness for this work. For example the IAM touring show that starts on May 3rd in San Francisco, Montreal’s first Visionary Show put together by Chris Dyer, as well as the PUSH studio show, ‘Catalysing Collective Creativity’ in SF and this is yet a small pocket of the events and exhibitions that are lining up around the world!, and the list goes on…

The great net of our interconnectedness is becoming stronger and more visible, as we nurture and stick to our intuition and visions. The most recent amazing crossing for me happened on my 31st birthday on April 19th (bicycle day- the day Albert Hoffman first experienced LSD in 1938) – I met Alex and Allyson Grey for the first time at CoSM’s temporary home in NYC for a talk Alex was giving. We shared and connected synapses of synchronicity, I always knew there would be a time when we finally would meet and it was so absolutely perfect that it was on this day… completely unplanned and perfect as I was in NY for a totally different artistic purpose. This amazing place that they are building and creating only an hour and half from NYC is going to be a mecca for the new world, a place of healing, growth, knowledge and inspiration and it brings so much hope and joy to know that it is happening. This is yet the beginning, and the network of light is strengthening, intoxicating those who have the receptors to expand.
I am so proud and humbled to be apart of this ever growing global community of artists, educators, musicians, dancers, writers, the list goes on and on who feel the drive and passion for bringing on a new way of living and harmonizing with the planet… to reflect and inspire and give thanks for the beauty that surrounds us and to strive for a sustainable future

Blessings –
Amanda Sage
www.amandasage.com
Los Angeles, April 2009

Artist Bio

Amanda Sage was born April 19, 1978 in Denver, Colorado. Starting in 1996, her travels and projects bounced her between Bali, Indonesia and Vienna, Austria. She studied traditional painting and etching for one and a half years with Michael Fuchs, and has been a student and painting assistant to Ernst Fuchs since 1999.

Amanda has been blessed with a beautiful studio in the WUK since 2000, a self-governed culture house in Vienna, as well as being involved in creating new systems of group-interaction and presentation.

Most recently she has become involved with the HIVE Gallery & studio’s, and is currently living and working as an artist in residence in Los Angeles.

She has exhibited in Galleries, Salons and in various projects/events worldwide, including London, Vienna, Munich, Bali, Colorado, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and most exotically in Entheon Village at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada, 2007.

“Through my work I aim to shatter the ‘illusion of separation’, to challenge the viewer to question, and evolve out of ignorance, conditioning and ingrained genetic habits. In life I strive to take responsibility for the effect of my existence, and through my actions and images, inspire others to think/dream beyond their immediate capacity. Ultimately I seek to create portals that open to the infinite possibilities of being and expressing, so that we may remember and re-discover who we are, where we originate from and where we are headed. My aspiration is to paint messages, visions and narratives that communicate with an ‘older & wiser us’, awakening ancient memory; as well as the ‘present us’, that we may grow up and accept the responsibilities towards ourselves, each other and the rest of existence on this planet… now”