CCA Introducing: Amy Higgins

CCA Introducing, our 24 hour social media takeovers, returns this summer, as more artists will be taking over our platforms to share their work, research and thoughts. Following on from Corinne Mazzoli's takeover back in April 2022, we are delighted to be handing our social media over to artist Amy Higgins, who will take control of our Instagram page on Monday 1 August 2022 to share her research, work and interests. Amy Higgins was nominated by Belfast-based artist Susan Connolly.

I am a visual artist working mainly in oils with various materials in the process. I have recently started exploring the idea of installation within the realms of painting and ‘environment’. I have always seen painting as the final conclusion to my experimentation in the studio with the material of things, recently I have extended in to how the painting is read, the ‘embodiment of looking’, the painting ‘environment’ and have been exploring this inside the painting and out.

I have a fondness for fabric, and I have been including the textile body in painting and installation. This plasticity, flexibility and state of Flux has brought new possibilities to the work and has broadened the scope for an extended painting practice.

The subject matter of my work is normally melancholic and macabre: the human condition, the monstrous feminine and mental health are elements of research in my work that I began investigating in my Masters degree, which intrigues my actions in the studio today. The idea of the monstrous, in painting, in the sense of a convergence of ‘worlds’ or realms is an unswerving vein in my work. The development of fabric has aided this merge, which is mirrored in the painting at times in a lustrous drape or fold, or in the installation of the painting and the supports. The installation and environmental aspect is a development of these notions, which encourage the viewer to lean into transcendental places and the Theatrical. The textures of the knife scrape, the scarring of the impasto paint, the gloss of the geometrical or organic line work enhances the canvas’ insinuated planes and the pseudo-theatre scene.