Professor, 2D Foundations Area Coordinator
Harvard University, BA
Visual and Environmental Studies (Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors),
2001
Yale University School of Art, MFA
Painting and Printmaking, 2007
Drawing, Painting
Amanda Burnham is interested in cities, systems, and the dark humor to be found in
modern life; she makes drawings, artist books, and large site specific installations.
The latter works are usually composed of hundreds of quick, gestural, acrylic paint
sketches made with a fat brush that are then cut and collaged onto both built armatures
and the existing surfaces of a space; these are sometimes further animated with embedded
lighting. The effect is somewhere between a comic book and a stage set.
Burnham’s work has been exhibited widely. Selected venues include the Berman Museum
(PA), the Phillips Museum (PA), the Delaware Contemporary, the American University
Art Museum (DC), the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (CT), the Toledo Museum of
Art (OH), the Gershman Gallery (Philadelphia), Volta (Basel, Switzerland), Marianne
Boesky Gallery (NYC), Benrimon Contemporary (NYC), and Dorsch Gallery (Miami). Among
numerous honors, she is a three time recipient of Individual Artist Awards from the
Maryland State Art Council, and a Rubys Grant recipient. Selected residencies include
the Embassy of Foreign Artists (Geneva, Switzerland), the Swatch Art Peace Hotel (Shanghai,
China), and Paper Machine (New Orleans, LA). Her artist book “Quorum Call” was published
by Antenna in 2018; a self published artist book, “Rage Faces”, is part of the permanent
collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the New York Public Library.
Burnham holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard
University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale University
School of Art.