Amy J Dycke

In the mysterious internal landscape, where our experiences are not solid, knowable objects, where our feelings come and go, and where our deeper selves reside, my work explores what it feels like to be human, alive, limited, with all the vulnerability, yearning, resilience, and complexity inherent inside us.

My recent work is a collection of collages, paintings and sculptural works of women, referencing aspects of their depth, complexity, vulnerability, and strength. Pulling from lived experience with disability and difficulty, the creatures in the work are nuanced and strange, broken and fierce, and filled with conflicting parts as they figure out how to move forward and fight back in a world that can be rife with problems.

In 2021 I read the book titled No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz. His model of psychotherapy posits that there are many parts of us that work together as sort of a “family system,” making up the whole of us. Some of these parts of us can hold difficult memories and become protective of us and cause us to lash out, others hold our hopes or joy, others yet we may not understand. These parts of us can come into conflict, such as when we feel torn between two choices. His philosophy on the internal human experience offered a theoretical basis for the work that I’ve been making for many years.

Usually, I start my creative process by sitting down with photographs, paint, paper and mixed media supplies. I cut, connect, disconnect, smear and experiment until a figure with a sense of honest complexity and embodied presence emerges. These small works on paper are finished works themselves but are also often the inspiration for larger paintings and sculptures as I continue to explore.