About
Amy Elkins is a visual artist based in the Bay Area. She received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and her MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University. She works in photography, installation and sculpture and has spent the past fifteen years researching, creating and exhibiting work that explores the multifaceted nature of masculine identity as well as the psychological and sociological impacts of incarceration. Most recently Elkins' work pivots to include explorations of self as well as her family's deeply rooted and complex history in Southern California as an 8th generation born on Tongva land in the greater Los Angeles area. Her approach is series-based, steeped in research and oscillates between formal, conceptual and documentary.
Elkins has been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally, including at The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA; South Bend Museum of Art in South Bend IN; MSU Broad Museum in Lansing, MI; Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna; the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; North Carolina Museum of Art and more. Her photographs have been published in American Photo, Conveyor, Dear Dave, EyeMazing, Financial Times, Harpers, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, NY Arts, New York Times, New Yorker, PDN, Real Simple, Stella and Vice among many others.
Elkins first book Black is the Day, Black is the Night won the 2017 Lucie Independent Book Award. It was shortlisted for the 2017 Mack First Book Award and the 2016 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Prize as well as listed as one of the Best Photobooks of 2016 by TIME, Humble Arts Foundation, Photobook Store Magazine and Photo-Eye among others. Her second book Anxious Pleasures was published by Kris Graves Projects and can be purchased HERE.
Additional book publications include The Portrait. Photography as a Stage From Robert Mapplethorpe to Nan Goldin; The Sports Show: Athletics as Image and Spectacle; Photographs Not Taken; By the Glow of the Jukebox: The Americans List; Keeper of the Hearth; Next Generation: Contemporary American Photography; and The Photographer’s Playbook among others.
Elkins co-founded Women in Photography (WIPNYC) with Cara Phillips in 2008. The primarily internet-based project showcased the work of lens-based women artists outside of the traditional model of the commercial art world. Since its inception, Women in Photography awarded over seventeen thousand dollars in grants to artists and collaborated with Aperture Foundation, LACMA, MoCP, Leslie Tonkonow, Lightwork, P.P.O.W Gallery, Humble Arts Foundation and many independent women curators.
Download full CV here
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
2022
Wallflower II, Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2021
Parting Words, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN
2019
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Vita Arts Center, Ventura, CA
2018
Amy Elkins: Photographs of Contemporary Masculinity, Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion,
Orange Coast College. Costa Mesa, CA
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece
2017
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
2016
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Cress Gallery, Chattanooga, TN
2015
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX
In Position: Amy Elkins & Jona Frank, DeSoto Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Aperture Gallery, New York, NY
2012
Looking & Looking: Jen Davis & Amy Elkins, Light Work Gallery, Syracuse, NY
2011
Elegant Violence, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Wallflower, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2022
Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana, Syracuse University Art Museum,
Syracuse, NY
What Photography Is, Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Roanoke, VA
Catalog:What Photography Is, Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Roanoke, VA, 2022
Ultra Violent, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Let Them Eat Cake, Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford, CA
Catalog: Let Them Eat Cake, Stanford, CA, 2022
2021
Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana, MSU Broad Museum, Lansing, MI
Lava Cake, Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford, CA
Looking West, A Survey of Art on the Left Coast, Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2020
Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana, Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, NY
Legacy Exhibition, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, CA
Layer Cake, Coulter Gallery, Stanford, CA
Right of Return x Represent Justice, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
2019
Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana, Newcomb Museum, New Orleans, LA
Catalog: Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana, Newcomb Museum,
New Orleans, LA, 2019
American Truth: A Biennial Alumni Exhibition, School of Visual Arts Chelsea Gallery
2018
A Recounting, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul: Selections from the Light Work Collection,
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, Syracuse, NY
Due Process, Goethe Institut: Ludlow 38 gallery, New York, NY
2017
Man Up, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Notions of Home, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
Women Look Out, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2015
Inside/Outside: Prison Narratives, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Manifest: Justice, Baldwin Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Performance: Contemporary Photography from the Douglas Nielsen Collection
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ
2013
Recent Acquisitions, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
2012
Andy Warhol and his Contemporaries: an urban milieu, Flaten Art Museum, Northfield, MN
The Sports Show Curated by David Little, Minneapolis Institute of Arts Museum,
Minneapolis, MN
Catalog: Little, David Eugene. The Sports Show: Athletics as Image and Spectacle.
Minneapolis, MN: University Of Minnesota Press, 2012
2010
Homesick, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA
2009
The Portrait. Photography as a Stage: From Robert Mapplethorpe to Nan Goldin.
Curated by Peter Weiermair, The Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Catalog: The Portrait: Photography as a Stage: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2010
The House was Quiet and the World was Calm. Curated by Christopher Lew
Tina Kim Gallery, New York, NY
COLLECTIONS:
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Newcomb Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Light Work, Syracuse, NY
Aperture Foundation, New York, NY
SFMoMA Research Library (BITDBITN Book)
National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum (BITDBITN Book)
Special Collections at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BITDBITN Book)
HAAS Arts Special Collections Yale University (BITDBITN Book)
Stanford Bowes Art and Architecture Library
(BITDBITN Book + Anxious Pleasures Book and Print Set)
Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Roanoke, VA
MONOGRAPHS:
Elkins, Amy. Anxious Pleasures. 1st ed., Queens, NY: Kris Graves Projects, 2022. Print
Elkins, Amy. Black Is the Day, Black Is the Night. 1st ed., Oxnard, CA: Self Published, 2016. Print
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES:
2021
Pauline Brown Fund Recipient for Advanced Research in American Art,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
The Huntington, Independent Research Scholar, San Marino, CA
2020
Cadogan Award, San Francisco, CA
2019
Pauline Brown Fund Recipient for Advanced Research in American Art,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2018
The Huntington, Independent Research Scholar, San Marino, CA
2017
Lucie Independent Book Prize, Los Angeles, CA
MACK First Book Awards Shortlist, London, England
2016
Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist, New York, NY
2015
Peter S Reed Foundation Grant, New York, NY
2014
Aperture Portfolio Prize
Latitude Artist-in-Residence, Chicago, IL
2013
LEAD Award Portrait Category, Hamburg, Germany
2012
Villa Waldberta International Artist-in-Residence, Munich, Germany
2011
Lightwork Artist-in-Residence, Syracuse, NY