We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Hoagland a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

A meaningful project that I have been recently working on has been creating a series of artworks related to my research in the Arctic Circle. My experience in the Arctic with the Arctic Circle Residency was life-altering and powerful. The residency was on a sailing vessel with 29 artists and scientists from around the world. I have never been surrounded by so many artists at once distinctly driven by climate change within their practices. There was a diversity of artistic interests, but the reasoning for being in the residency was similar: to create work about climate. This uniting factor led to deep and inspiring dialogue between me and the other artists.

I could visually see and feel the loss in the Arctic: this was profound. I acted as a sponge during the residency. I wanted to see, feel, and absorb the environment to translate this sensorial knowledge through my artwork. I gained an overwhelming amount of artistic knowledge during the residency that I will unpack for the rest of my lifetime. The experience is just beginning to unravel within my work and I am excited for the continued influence it will have. I have been working on a series of torch-worked scientific glass forms related to 3D scan data of the fleeting forms in the arctic. My goal is for the experience in the Arctic to be translated within my artwork to instill change in its viewers and cultivate greater empathy for our planet.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! I am Amy. I am an artist, and my studio is based in Denver, Colorado. I create sculptures about the human relationship within the surrounding landscape. I work with materials such as glass, metal, and projected light to create work to better understand our relationship within nature. Working outside of my studio and interacting with the surrounding landscape is a critical part of my practice: many of my concepts are derived from organizing my thoughts during the time spent outside. My senses are activated during these moments in the terrain which informs my desire to connect viewers of my work to their senses. The world we exist in moves at such a pace that I believe it is easy to overlook the marvelous subtleties; my sculptural installations attempt to draw attention to unverbalized natural phenomena that are overlooked by a distracted eye or mind.
I am specifically curious about perception. How does one’s perception of their environment shape their view of the world? Of their connection or disconnection to the surrounding landscape? Through multi-elemental sculptural installations— often including materials such as glass and rocks (fake and real), but also elements like reflection, light and shadow— I explore these questions. These elements act as vehicles for this exploration of perception and connection to the landscape.
I choose materials based on the connotations that they hold. Scientific glass provides connection to lab equipment and the scientific understanding of the world around us. I am fascinated by the expression of time alternative to human measurements within the landscape. Geologic time is of specific interest to me; rocks express time through weathering, layering, and moving. A rock touched today may have originated millions of years ago or from a few hundred years of rolling around in a creek bed. Vast amounts of information are found inside the layers of rocks and ice, for that matter— information that tells us a story about time.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I love being an artist for the endless possibilities the work creates. I do not have a predetermined path that my artwork will take in the future and I enjoy the ambiguity in that. My work will change, evolve, and grow over time. It is rewarding to get to work with my hands, on my feet, and to learn new processes to aid in the evolution of my work.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

A few books and essays that have informed my arts practice over the years:

The Human Argument: The Writings of Agnes Denes
Becoming Animal – David Abram
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008

Contact Info:

• Website: https://amyhoagland.com
• Instagram: @amyhoaglandstudio

Image Credits

1st image – me creating microscopic videos of Arctic ice – image by Ted Efremoff
Documentation images – myself, Valerie Santerli, and Sophia Poppy Erickson