Amy Cousins
Land Projects (detail), risograph prints from "Country Women," paper mache, and rug tufting.
“Seeing things in full, bright, color makes them feel more alive and present, and when I’m repurposing archival material in my work it’s because I think it has relevance today.”
Amy Cousins is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). Her approach to color is bold and intuitive and her approach to printmaking is roundabout. Amy’s research-based and large-scale work is created with screenprinting and risograph printing. She also creates soft sculpture and paper-maché works.
Currently, Amy is working on an installation based on the plants she’s grown in her small city garden, and how these connect to herself as well as ideas of queer ecology and queer land projects of the past.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
A lot of my work involves digging through queer archives and bringing printed ephemera to life. For me "bringing to life" always seems to mean punching up the color--archival materials never appear dusty, faded, or tea stained in my work. I remember the first time I heard that many of the old statues we see in museums were once painted bright colors instead of the whites and ivories that we see them in--it was something of a revelation for me. Seeing things in full, bright, color makes them feel more alive and present, and when I'm repurposing archival material in my work it's because I think it has relevance today.
Making the work colorful makes it more inviting and relatable to the viewer, rather than something old and dated that might be easier to dismiss. I've also made a lot of work about dance parties, dyke bars, and other utopian spaces or states of mind, and so my palette tends to be bright and celebratory. What I'm working on now is more of a garden party kind of utopian space, so I've been studying the colors in my garden. As it turns out, I've planted a garden full of bright colors, so, it's probably fair to say I also just like bright colors.
Can’t Stop Dancing, 12-color lithograph, 26” x 21,” printed by Normal Editions Workshop, 2018.
Among Us, Installation, 2020.
Boundless (detail), two 13’x11’ walls, screenprint on backed paper with grommets and metal chain, 2020.
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
I really benefit from a limited palette. One of my first painting teachers told me that no two places on my canvas should be the same color because no two points on the still life in front of me were exactly the same color, and I don't think I ever recovered. She was right, but it was too overwhelming.
I prefer the printmaking approach, trying to distill something down into as few colors as possible while still telling the story you need to. I love the challenge of working with layers, seeing how much information you can pack into them. A few years ago I made a lithograph with Normal Editions Workshop, and they told me I could do up to 4 layers in the print. Well, we ended up using 12 colors throughout those four layers, and I did 2 blend rolls in different directions. It was a lot of fun--and especially surprising to see how the two blend rolls would interact on the print. They keep beautiful files of color swatches from all their projects there. The one for my print was a full spectrum.
What can printmaking ink achieve regarding color in your work that no other material can?
Generally, my favorite way to work is to create hand-drawn, india ink positives for screen printing. Something about the painterly mark translated into a flat plane of color is so satisfying to me, and I love working with transparent layers.
When I teach screenprinting I always give a "2 layer, 3 color" prompt early on and encourage students to really get the most mileage out of their layers by mixing the colors on the page as well as utilizing the white of the paper with negative space. And I require them to do color swatches--I think it's the best way to learn! It took me years to realize how much happier I would be with my work if I really took the time to do color swatches first. Sometimes I spend hours on it.
All The Queerness That’s Fit To Print: The New York Times 1967-75 on Ornamental Cabbages (detail), screen print, mulberry paper, buttons, wood, and foam, and digitally printed wallpaper.
Not in Our House, Installation, 2016.