Amy Ahlstrom
My body of work consists of three distinct groups of silk and cotton quilts: urban quilts, portraits of women, and a series of text-based quilts about my personal experience as a woman artist.
The urban quilts are inspired by the street art, signage, and graffiti in city neighborhoods. Utilizing found images, I design collages by computer, make paper patterns, and create hand-cut and sewn quilts. The resulting quilts re-imagine the urban landscape and re-invent quilting as a pop art medium.
The new portrait series aims to create more visibility for women. The quilts are two-panel double portraits: each panel has the same image but one is reversed. The concept is that women have a double identity: their true selves and the identity that is imposed upon them. The process is a collaboration between myself and the woman depicted. My goal is to illuminate a variety of diverse perspectives of what it means to be female in today’s society.
For more information about the artist, please visit her website.