Artist Highlight: Amanda Linares
Photo by: Cassanas, 2022.
Amanda Linares is a Cuban-born visual artist based in Miami, Florida. She received a technical degree in printmaking from San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (Havana, Cuba) and a BFA in graphic design from New World School of the Arts (Miami, Florida). Linares’ work addresses a variety of themes relating to identity, displacement, absence, and reconnection through varied use of media. Influenced by literature and poetic language, her work explores narration and space through the use of reflection, transparency, revelation, found objects, and typographical solutions.
In 2020, Linares’ solo BFA project Between Islands and Peninsulas was completed during the inaugural Summer Open residency and displayed at the Bakehouse Art Complex (Miami, Florida). Her work has been exhibited at Oolite Arts (Miami Beach, Florida), Fredric Snitzer Gallery (Miami, Florida), Edge Zones (Miami, Florida), The Bonnier Gallery (Miami, Florida), and FAR Contemporary Gallery (Ft Lauderdale, Florida). Linares participated in the Home + Away residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts with Oolite Arts in 2021. She’s been a resident artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex since 2020 and has contributed to developing their ‘s brand identity since then.
Can you tell us about your artistic practice?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist who recurrently explores universal issues, such as identity, belonging, absence, and reconnection through the extended and intentional use of materials and space. I enjoy the challenges of introducing new materials to my work as a way to play with their contrasted fragility and durability. Influenced by literature, my installations, photographs, drawings, artist books, and sculptures make use of poetic language and narration, while reflecting on memory and time. My foundation in graphic design pushes my art practice conceptually and formally and contributes to the use of text and language through typographical solutions.
Tell us about a personal artistic project or body of work that you are currently excited about.
I’m currently working on a photography-driven installation that will be part of the group art show titled Miami is Not the Caribbean. Yet it Feels Like it. taking place at Oolite Arts. As the title indicates, the work, in an attempt to answer the question if Miami is the Caribbean or not, portrays the sensation of Miami as a partial memory/echo of the Caribbean.
Tell us about how you have developed as an artist since you began working at Bakehouse.
My body of work has grown professionally since I first started at the Bakehouse back in 2020 through the Summer Open. Being part of the program gave me the necessary tools and space to finish and exhibit my BFA project during the hopeless year of the COVID-19 outbreak. The access to a studio space the following year granted me the opportunity to not only freely create but also to show my work to gallery owners and curators. Furthermore, becoming part of a community of artists such as the one at the Bakehouse has positively nurtured my work and connected me with amazing people.