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  • Adventure and travel are in my blood. I was born in Germany and spent my formative years in a small village outside of Nairobi Kenya. In Africa, I had access to the wide open plains of the Serengeti, went on safaris and learned to ride horses in the bush. It was a life lived close to the raw earth, the big sky and the natural world.

    Those early experiences of freedom and abandon had a deep impact on me and became instrumental in my desire to become an artist and later on the kind of art I was drawn to create.

    I began painting in 1978 at the age of 20, after a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC where I stood transfixed in front of Monet’s Late water lily paintings. I left feeling exhilarated, enchanted and inspired by the monumental, sweeping and saturated canvases. A month later I returned to university as a senior and signed up for painting, drawing and sculpture. I have been painting ever since.

    From the beginning I was drawn to the energy and freedom of the Abstract Expressionist painters. Like them, my work is emotionally driven, gestural, spontaneous and intuitive. As an artist I have always had the desire to translate and share my experiences, my memories and feelings on the canvas. My love of color and movement is also at the heart of everything I create.

    Painting is first a physical act, an intuitive, sensual and immediate response to the world around me.

    I paint as an explorer going on a sensory journey. I disappear into the unknown and dig for what will unravel and reveal itself: scraping, scratching, wiping, adding, subtracting, Inviting drips, stains, layering, and accidents.

    I paint on a large scale so I can feel my body moving across a big field. I engage with my paintings as in a dance, an improvisational call and response. I make a mark or a gesture and then I stand back and watch and listen. I let the painting guide my movements and my choices.

    Painting for me involves a process of exploration and discovery. I love the element of surprise as I play with and experiment with new materials and color combinations. I often build up the surface with many thin layers of paint, adding collage: paper, fabric, wood, and mementos from my travels.

    It is my intention to invite my viewers into a rich sensate world of color, form and depth where they are free to roam, Imbibe, dream and wander.

Testimonials

  • The minute I saw her work I was instantly drawn to it. There is something about it that I connect to because so much of Amadea’s soul and spirit is expressed there. It is work that is easy to be with yet the more I look at it the more I see. Her art moves me, it makes me happy and it makes me think. It also makes me explore my own life.

    I have about six of her works. I am a huge fan.

    Halle Berry, Actress
Amadea Bailey in her studio