Get to Know Amelia Coward

Kooness: What drives you to create these beautiful artworks and what are your sources of inspiration?

Amelia Coward: When studying art at Central St.Martins in London, I was lucky enough to do a colour study course which focused on the colour theory work of Joseph Albers. I spent many weeks blending colours and painting plain colour blocks. This taught me, in huge depth how colours interact with one another. I learnt woven textiles alongside this and combined the two, creating a hand dyed boy of textile work. This all led to my working in much the same way as I worked with textiles but instead using wood and dyes. I still refer back to the work of Joseph Albers and also some of the more OP Art Colour artists such as Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Kooness: What is the artistic process behind your work? How has your style changed over time?

AC: My work, naturally has become more refined over time, combined with my interest to push the limits to create smaller and smaller elements such as dots and stripes. I am interested in how the colour is carried by the smaller or larger surface area of the laser cut shapes. Some recent works contain some 2500 individual laser cut painted dots each measuring 10mm.

K: What would you regard as the most important milestones of your artistic career by now?

AC: The milestone I recall which has pushed my work forward is my ability to use my laser machine as my ‘weaving tool. The realization that this piece of machinery could be used to create paintings has challenged me to push the limits in terms of the scale of what I can make.

K: From all the artworks your have created so far, which is your favourite   and why?

AC: The works I get the most satisfaction out of making are usually my favourite. With my 900 map dots piece, I find I really get in the flow, the dots are a perfect size to hold in my hand and fix to the board. I am able to zone right into the making process and focus on the composition. They sense of satisfaction on completion as the nine hundredth dot is glued in feels is a bit like completing a marathon.

K: In addition, to your artistic career, you are a successful business woman, leading the commercial giftware business Bombus. How does this business interfere with your artistic path? How do these two parts of your life interact to each other?

AC: I have been running my creative giftware company for twenty years and in that time, I have spent many years developing commercial products based upon the requests and requirements of the customers and marketplace. I endeavor to do the opposite with my artistic works and to focus on my practice. This focus is hard to achieve as collectors like to be included in the process and I regularly spend time creating different scale works or special commissions for my collectors. I find it hard to pivot back to my process after spending time working on commissions.