Work
Press Release
Sarah Amos | Incandescence
Exhibition Dates: April 11 – May 16, 2026
In Conversation: Saturday, April 11th at 2pm.
Sarah Amos & Julia Couzens
Reception follows from 3-5:30pm
Currently, there are a number of artists who are combining different processes and materials to push a traditional form or medium – painting and printmaking, for example – into a fresh place. One area where that push is proving productive is printmaking. Among the artists whose work should be singled out, I would include Sarah Amos, Didier William, and Tammy Nguyen.
–John Yau, Poet/Art Critic, Hyperallergic, Nov. 2019
Sarah Amos is a master printmaker who defies the traditions of printmaking; instead, she explores the opulent hand and texture of textiles. Drawing on the influence of Japanese prints, architecture, and the graphic symbolism and movement of manga, Amos has developed a body of work that pushes printmaking into a richer, more expansive terrain. Her process begins with sketches in a sketchbook, which she develops into 16 × 20 inch gouache drawings on paper, typically made in groups of six, allowing forms, colors, and patterns to evolve in conversation with one another. From the 50 to 60 drawings she produces each year, only a small number are translated into large-scale textiles, each selected for its resonance and ability to hold the weight of that transformation.
The final iteration is a unique mixed media hybrid textile ‘painting’, requiring a one-thousand-pound press. Amos drives acrylic ink deep into the tooth of the material surface, creating a soft, velvety ground that she layers with yarn and stitching. In these hybrid works, thread does not simply sit on top of the printed image; it extends and activates it, intensifying the relationship between color, background, surface, and sculptural form. With more than 30 years of experience in printmaking, she’s developed a multivariant approach that brings together an understanding of fine art printing, stitching, appliqué, and collage in singular compositions that are at once unconventional, tactile, and painterly.
Sarah Amos received the prestigious 2024 Vermont Prize from juror Phong H. Bui, artist, curator, co-founder and publisher of The Brooklyn Rail. Amos also received the 2020 Joan Mitchell Center Artists-in-Residence, rescheduled to 2021; and the 2020 Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Recent and past exhibitions include the CUE Art Foundation, New York in 2019; the Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia; Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California; Penn State University, Pennsylvania; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Originally from Australia, Sarah Amos lives and works on the East Coast. She left Australia to attend the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in New Mexico where she became a certified Tamarind Master Printer in Lithography. In 1998 Sarah became the Master Printer for the Vermont Studio Center Press, a position she would hold for 10 years. Amos was an Adjunct Professor at Dartmouth, Williams and Bennington Colleges teaching Printmaking and Drawing. Press includes Hyperallergic, Artforum, Art & Object, Art New England and Widewalls. Museum collections include The Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, NH; La Trobe Art Institute Museum, Melbourne, Australia; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; The Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT.