Kalliope Amorphous

Kalliope Amorphous (born 1978) is an American visual artist, poet, fine-art photographer, and performance artist. She lives and works in New York City and makes self portrait photography.[1]

Kalliope Amorphous
Born1978 (age 42–43)
Providence, RI, United States
OccupationArtist, photographer
Websitekalliopeamorphous.com

Style

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.[2] Acting as her own model, she explores the meaning of identity by assuming different roles.[3] Amorphous has stated that the "study of consciousness"[4] and the concept of duende[5] are primary influences in her work. She has also cited butoh as an influence.[6]

Overview

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.[7]

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.[4]

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.[8] The series was exhibited in Amorphous' hometown in a solo exhibition at the Community College of Rhode Island and appeared in print in the premier issues of Dark Beauty magazine[9] and The Omen Magazine.[10]

In 2011, Amorphous was named in GLAAD's annual Top 100 Artists. She is a recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for self-portraiture from The Photography Gala Awards.

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.[11] 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."[12] In her distorted self-portraits, Amorphous explores what she calls "the fluid nature of identity".[13]

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 Abramovic.[14] Amorphous appears opposite Matthew Avedon in the music video Savage Way to Live for the Brooklyn-based band Relations.[15]

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.[16]

References
  1. "Is This What Your Dreams Look Like?". HuffPost UK. April 25, 2012. Retrieved November 22, 2018.
  2. "Kalliope Amorphous Photography: Conceptual Pictorial Self Portraits". Astrum People. Retrieved April 22, 2014
  3. "Kalliope Amorphous". Dazed, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2014
  4. Romero, Juan Carlos (interviewer) (February 2011), In her own light: Kalliope Amorphous, Nau Nua: Art Magazine, archived from the original on February 29, 2012
  5. Body Language (interview with Amorphous) (PDF), All the Thunder, retrieved May 7, 2019
  6. Emerging Artist Interviews: Kalliope Amorphous, Musée Magazine, February 6, 2013, retrieved May 7, 2019
  7. Interview with Brian Sherwin, March 2008 Retrieved April 22, 2014
  8. "Hauntingly Beautiful Self-Portraits: Resurrecting Ophelia". My Modern Met. Retrieved April 23, 2014
  9. Dark Beauty Magazine, Issue I, August 2010. Dark Beauty. Retrieved April 22, 2014
  10. The Omen Magazine, Issue 1, 2010. The Omen Magazine. Retrieved April 22, 2014
  11. "Submerged Self Portraits: 'Glass Houses' by Kalliope Amorphous Uses Distortion Mirrors To Mesmerize". TrendHunter. Retrieved April 23, 2014
  12. Beyond the Mirror, 'Glass Houses' by Kalliope Amorphous], Lancia TrendVisions, January 22, 2013, archived from the original on March 14, 2016
  13. Hosmer, Katie (September 2, 2013), Dreamy Self-Portraits Created by Using a Moving Mirror, My Modern Met, retrieved May 7, 2019
  14. Marina Abramovic Portrait by Kalliope Amorphous
  15. "Relations Band film Page" Relations. Retrieved April 23, 2014 Archived April 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ""TOROSIETE Museum of Contemporary Art, Kalliope Amorphous
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