Amelie Rider

Artist Statement

“Girl Emigrated” 2014, Acrylic on canvas;
“Girl Broken” 2015, acrylic on wood

As an Art teacher in a California high school I end up learning about what is in the hearts and minds of my students. The nature of creating comes from what we feel within ourselves and our desire to give a “voice” to those feelings. When I was talking to my student whose family had earlier emigrated from Nicaragua, she said she did not feel beautiful. The location of our school is in a tony neighborhood. And through her tears, she said her looks did not fit in “here.” I decided to paint my own vision of this girl. I feel it is a powerful, yet honest image of a girl who is proud of who she is. She and her friends watched me paint this, and I really do feel the image I created replaced the old image she had of herself. Since painting “Girl Emigrated” last year, I have begun painting images of other girls on campus -all with issues of identity and self-image. Another, very different painting, “Girl Broken” is acrylic on wood. this painting ….While this girl was also my student, I also traveled to Europe with her along with a group of students. I call her broken because her parents are divorced, her dad lives in Taiwan, and her mom moves a lot for work. She is basically on her own with a passport. She doesn’t function well in our high paced environment and no one is really around to see what is happening.
I created these more photo-realistic acrylic pieces by doing my own photo shoots. On both paintings I have created a purposeful “faulty” texture prior to painting the images.