Amanda Tinker’s (Philadelphia, PA) series Small Animals looks at the natural world as if it were held just for our observation, suspended far from any recognizable landscape. Birds, butterflies, flowers, and flecks of dirt, become objects of contemplation. The groundglass of the 8×10” view camera, on which these studies are composed, factors greatly into the work, referencing the artist’s interest in the early history of photography, particularly as a tool for studying nature. “One can imagine an era just before the dawn of photography where views of nature stirred on the glass of a camera obscura. Nature had been transformed through optical devices giving way to a diminutive view; the landscape on a smaller, more intimate scale. This project, situated in the 21st century, reflects a more ambivalent, if not estranged, experience of the natural world.”
Tinker has exhibited frequently in national and international exhibitions. Selected exhibitions include the Photography Gallery at the University of Notre Dame; The Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia; The Print Center, Philadelphia; Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia; Gallerie Lampinstrasse, Bielefeld, Germany. She has also been published in The Photo Review as part of the 2004 Photo Review Competition. In 2005 Tinker received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2003 she received a Window of Opportunity Grant from The Leeway Foundation in preparation for her inclusion in The First Woodmere Triennial of Contemporary Photography at the Woodmere Art Museum. Most recently her work was included in the exhibition Alternative at the Heilongjiang Art Museum in Harbin, China and the exhibition, The Family, at the Detroit Center For Contemporary Photography.
