Amanda Flynn - I am Woman [Acrylic on Canvas]

Type of Media
Drawing/Painting/Printmaking

Artist Statement
I was born in Singapore and grew up in the United Kingdom. It was there that I spent the formative years of my life. I read Chinese and Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, and afterwards went to Taiwan, planning to stay for a year. I was however seduced by Hualien’s majestic mountains and wild waters, and it was there that I completed my Master of Fine Arts in Art and Design. I have come full circle and am currently back in my home country of Singapore, hoping to lay down roots here.

I am a multidisciplinary artist, skilled in many different art forms. The mediums I work with most frequently for my artwork are acrylics, gansai and ink, often executed on canvas or Chinese painting paper, and I sometimes paint using my fingers. I am also skilled in pottery, woodworking and silversmithing. I feel that materials are but tools to express feelings, and I recently completed a public project using recycled plastics in order to create environmental awareness.

My subject matters vary, but the subjects I love to paint about the most are that of the heart. I wrote and completed my Masters thesis on the topic of love in art. It was titled, Everything I Know About Love . I used ancient Greek philosophies of love as my springboard, and used these ideas as inspiration for my own series of artwork and solo exhibition on this topic. I love drawing and painting from life, and art is where my soul goes to feel its most free to create pieces which capture the beauty and observations of the everyday.


Bio
I was diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease, a pituitary macroadenoma tumour, at the age of 22, just a month after I graduated from university. My periods had stopped for a year before that, and the doctor I had visited repeatedly having done some blood tests, could not find a problem and chalked it down to stress, and hence, so did I.

The final year of university went by in a blur. However, everytime I looked in the mirror, I could tell the shape of my face was changing, and I just thought I was putting on weight, yet it was strange as I was losing it in the rest of my body - I had the classic moon face symptoms. I had been going to the psychology department at the university to be the subject in some psychology experiments involving MRI scans for some pocket money, and that was how my tumour was discovered. The operation was arranged for two months after my diagnosis, in August 2012. I remember the day that I heard the news, it was by phone call and I don’t remember being able to feel my arms or my legs afterwards as I stumbled down the stairs to tell my granddad, who I had been living with at the time. I felt as if the ground had fallen beneath my feet, and my heart felt empty and hollow. I was alone in the UK with my immediate family in Singapore and my boyfriend and I had just broken up.

After the diagnosis, I fell into a depression that I had never before experienced in my life. The circumstances had left me feeling absolutely helpless and terrified. The only thing that brought me any joy was the thought of painting, yet I was scared to pick up a paintbrush again, having previously stopped for six years. But I remember the day I stood in a dark and musty art shop, picked up a tube of prussian blue oil paint, and made a pact to love myself again.

I went home with a large box canvas and painted a scene of frangipani in blues, greens and pinks. After that, I spent much of my days before the looming operation painting. The amazing thing was that when I entered the hospital room I was to sleep in the day before my operation, the walls were painted with the exact same shades of the same colours that my first painting had been in - sky blue, lime green and baby pink. I had never believed in a higher power before but right then, I felt safer and a sense that I was being looked out for.

The operation was a success, and a few months later I underwent five weeks of radiotherapy to eliminate any residual tumour. A few months later, I decided to take control of my life and move to Taiwan to spend time painting and teaching. To be an artist had actually been my desire when I was a teen, but some choices I made along the way had meant that I had strayed from that path, and after the whole ordeal, I vowed to be true to myself again. It’s funny that a life and death situation makes you daring like never before.

I spent seven years living on the east coast of Taiwan, bringing my body back to health and having six monthly scans and tests which continue to this day. I was awarded a scholarship to pursue my masters degree studies in Art and Design there, a long desired dream that I hadn’t admitted to. Three of the best years of my life later, I was awarded a Masters in Fine Art. The tumour has changed my life in that it gave me the courage to be true to my heart and to be an artist, and in turn, my experiences with the tumour have fuelled my gratitude and perspective on life, which has influenced my artwork greatly.

I am now 31 years of age and after working with many different mediums, I would say my favourites are a traditional Japanese watercolour called ​gansai which produces vivid colours, and black Chinese ink. I love using colour in my work and am known by my peers as never being afraid to splash colour onto my canvas, yet I find the simplicity of monochrome soothing too.