AMY STEVENS

“The CONFECTIONS SERIES started as a response to turning 30. It was a celebration of birthdays, cake, color, pattern and obsessive absurdity. My original intent was to bake 30 birthday cakes for myself and photograph them. I didn’t quite make it to 30 cakes in time for my first show, but I sure got a lot of ideas from those first cakes. When I started the project, I not only had to learn how to shoot in a studio setting, but also how to bake and decorate cakes. I ordered a cake decorating kit from Marthastewart.com and watched the included instructional video. When I quickly discovered my cakes were never going to look like the ones in the video and recipe booklet, I was free to make them as grotesque and amazing as possible— my little rebellion.
Four years later I am still making these crazy confections and still obsessing over color and pattern. This series is still commenting on my intense desire to strive for perfection and beauty, while embracing the absurdity of the results. Four years later, the industry of do-it-yourself divas is still going strong in television, magazines and books. It’s a fantasy world where entertaining, cooking and decorating unite. It’s a place where one needs to have a beautiful home, decorated seasonally, in order to entertain friends with gourmet meals and elaborately concocted desserts.”

AMY STEVENS grew up in the American Southwest. She earned a BFA in Photography and a certificate in Women’s Studies from Arizona State University and a MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Stevens has participated in group and solo shows in Seattle, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Montreal. In 2007 she completed a two-year career development fellowship with The Center for Emerging Visual Artists and was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Independence Foundation. Stevens has notably shown in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Delaware Art Museum, Photo LA, Photographic Center Northwest, Philadelphia International Airport and Maryland Art Place. Amy was recently announced a U.S. winner in Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward Emerging Photographer’s competition which includes a published book and a traveling group exhibition in Toronto, DC and Boston in 2009/2010.


☁ AMY STEVENS
☁ AMY STEVENS @ OITZARISME