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<\/a><\/p>\nI was first struck by the stark beauty of the figures in Amanda\u2019s work. Each character has an energy that seems palpable.<\/p>\n
The people she paints are both strong and fragile, made more impressive and fierce by their vulnerability, their humanity, their bodies.<\/p>\n
Her expressive and emotive line work and the universal and archetypal characters she creates pull us into a conversation about what it means to be a man or a woman, or possibly both or neither.<\/p>\n
It is a conversation about what it means to be in a body.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Sarah Treem\u2019s The How and The Why, <\/em>we are also introduced to fierce women, powerful in all their vulnerability, creating their own narratives about what it means to be in their bodies.<\/p>\n Unstudied and unexamined by male scientists for generations, the characters in this revolutionary script dive into the how and the why of menstruation and menopause, of fertility, sperm, blood and evolution, bravely searching for the truth of what the female anatomy does and why it does it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Both artistic works are a journey into personal empowerment, what femininity may be or not be, its limits and unlimited potential, where gender may begin, end, fail us or serve us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n From the discourse surrounding women\u2019s bodies in the current political campaign to the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights, to the struggle for self-acceptance and body positivity that we all may experience regardless of sex or gender, there has perhaps never been a more relevant or pressing time in our national history to consider the question of what our bodies mean to us and to society, How and Why they are defined, and who gets to author that definition.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Through both Amanda\u2019s enthralling visual representations and the fight for scientific acceptance of radical theories in The How and The Why,<\/em> we are asked to consider who gets to decide what about whose body, and whose determination of what our bodies mean or say about us is considered true.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n-Kiera Coughlan<\/em><\/h4>\n
All photos are original artworks by Amanda Dawn Potter from the Be Strong series.<\/h5>\n
About the Artist<\/h2>\n
Amanda Dawn Potter<\/a>, originally from Utah, has been living and creating art in Portland for over six years. An illustrator, painter and experimenter, she works in multiple mediums including oil, watercolor, and sculpture.\u00a0 Recent exhibitions include shows at The Wolff Gallery, Huntington Gallery in Seattle and the Stark House Guerrilla Show. Her watercolor series \u201cRemember to Water The Garden\u201d, focusing on self love and sex positivity was featured in an interview with Eleven PDX.<\/h4>\n
Amanda uses art to communicate the struggles with gender identification, sexual fluidity, the dynamic landscape of relationships and the grey space in between.<\/h4>\n
You can connect with Amanda by following her on Instagram at @amandadawnpotter, and through her website at<\/h4>\n
www.amandapotterart.wix.com\/gallery<\/a><\/h4>\n
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