Amelia Morris: The States Project: Indiana

Amelia Morris: The States Project: Indiana by Jacinda RussellJune 15, 2016

©Amelia Morris, I’m Burdened By Expectation

Amelia Morris – Indianapolis born and bred. Canning specialties: pear ginger jam and chutney. Librarian assistant. Photographic Muse. Former owner of a Honda Civic Wagon named Henry. Life drawing model. Product photographer. Jointly responsible for two felines: Carlos and Marco. Chocolate Maker. Tattoos: zero. Sewing machine brand: Singer. Doughnut lover. Sufferer of the “post-recession blues.” Practices perfect penmanship. Once stood beside Christian Marclay during a screening of The Clock. Preferred light source: natural. Hidden talent: Photoshopping human and animal heads on found photographs from the 1980s. Grows hair long for art. Mail Artist whose last postcard featured her partner Drew’s financial calculations of their future. Avid reader. Introspective genius.

Amelia Morris is a photographer and mixed media artist working with themes including identity, memory, and self-perception. Her imagery’s autobiographical content is expressed through both literal and symbolic self-portraiture and what Amelia lovingly calls “low-grade performance art.” Amelia graduated with honors from Ball State University in 2008. Her photographs are included in collections at Ball State University and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. She is an active member of the Postcard Collective, an international artist postcard exchange group. Amelia was a 2013 Robert D. Beckmann, Jr. Emerging Artist Fellow through the Arts Council of Indianapolis. She won a “golden ticket” scholarship to attend the Photolucida portfolio review festival in 2013, was a 2014 Critical Mass finalist, and created a commissioned original photograph for Crusade for Art’s 2015 Crusade Supported Art project. She lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana.

©Amelia Morris, Self Portrait

An Honest Assessment

An Honest Assessment is a series of staged self-portraits and documentation of provocative pennant banners exploring anxiety, inadequacy, anger, disappointment, and other feelings that are often discouraged from open discussion. The photographs serve as both private confessions and public declarations of living through these emotional states.

I have trouble maintaining my own psychological well-being and acknowledge the ridiculous paradox of feeling miserable when everything else in life seems to be fine. In that spirit, the elements of handmade whimsy in these photographs intentionally mock these heavier emotions. This is a light-hearted portrayal of serious concerns.