Amy Yoes
Professor, Adjunct
Contact
Bio
I work with various materials and techniques, alternately employing installation, photography, video, painting, and sculpture. One of my largest projects, Hot Corners (a multi-room installation), is on view at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, until January 2026. Other recent projects include Correspondências, a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Sculpture Museum in Santo Tirso, Portugal, and multiple Fire Projects, where we build complex sculptures that get burned in a choreographed blaze before a live audience.
What interests me most is the language of ornament, pattern, and design throughout history, and the specificity of spaces. My multi-faceted work employs installation, photography, video, painting, and sculpture, often within the same project. It all coalesces in environments and images that suggest the creation of a particular universe, with its own logic, codes, and syntax. My practice relies on the domino effect, where each project contains the seeds of the next work. The lineage of cross-pollinating is expressed through the use of rich color, the repetition of design motifs, and exuberant materiality.
My art making often results in the creation of situations where people gather. Whether constructing Fire Projects with the help of builder friends or creating animations with assistants on an indoor set, there is a meeting place where work is completed with the participation of others. By making the creative process public, new aspects of my practice unfold.
I teach every fall semester at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and live most of the year in Narrowsburg, upstate New York, with my husband—illustrator Jorge Colombo—and our two black cats, Inky and Sharpie.
Awards
Maison Dora Maar, Ménerbes, France, 2025; Brown Fellowship Award Residency at Maison Dora Maar, Ménerbes, France, 2013; AIR Krems Residency, Krems, Austria, 2011; University of Nevada Las Vegas Artist in Residence, 2006; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2002; NYFA / New York Foundation for the Arts Award, 2002; MacDowell Residency, New Hampshire, 2001; Yaddo Residency, Saratoga Springs, New York, 2001; The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Award, New York, 1999; Abbey Award in Painting, The British School at Rome, Italy, 1995; Luso-American Foundation Grant, Lisbon, Portugal, 1987
Exhibitions
Solo Projects: Conglomerates A + B, Catskill Art Space, Livingston Manor, NY, 2024; Hot Corners, curated by Denise Markonish, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2022–26; Fire Project, curated by Denise Markonish, a MASS MoCA project hosted by Salem Art Works, Salem, NY, 2021; Correspondências, Museu Internacional de Escultura Contemporânea, Santo Tirso, Portugal, 2019
Group Shows: Ceramics+: Drawing Into Sculpture, curated by Matt Nolen, The Factory, Queens, NY, 2024; Cosmic Geometries: The Prairie's Edge, curated by the Tiny Table Team, SECRIST | BEACH, Chicago, IL, 2024; Barely Fair, Color Club, Chicago, IL, 2024; Artists Draw Their Studios, curated by Michelle Weinberg, Kleinert Gallery, Byrdcliffe Guild, Woodstock, NY, 2023; 9th Street and Beyond: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction, Hunter Dunbar Gallery, NYC, 2022; The Tiny Table Gallery, The Comfort Station, Chicago, IL, 2022; Sculpture Milwaukee, curated by Michelle Grabner and Mary Jane Jacob, 2020; Equator: Animation at the Box, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, 2020
Personal Statement
I came to teach later in my career than some of my colleagues. When I graduated with a BFA from SAIC in 1984, I was eager to continue my art practice and gain some real-world experience. Over the years, as my work became known, I have been invited to be a visiting artist at many art schools and university art programs. Through my interaction with students; visiting their studios and getting to know about their motivations and concerns, I realized that teaching is something I love.
Mentoring students has become a regular part of my practice and is an important aspect of the teaching experience. A good example happened in Italy in 2013, when I co-produced a large project with Mark Dion at the Siena Art Institute. During our project, Above/Below Ground, we worked with a group of international students and produced an exhibition in the natural history museum in Siena. Themes of inquiry included the intersection of geology and architecture and topics specific to Siena.
The project led to SAIC offering a First Year Scholar's Study trip to Siena, which I co-teach regularly with faculty such as Brian Sikes, Suzy Giles, Laura Davis, and Amy Vogel. I keep in touch with many students from those groups, offering support in various ways. The same can be said of students from my other classes at SAIC. They come to me for advice, letters of recommendation, studio visits, and general camaraderie.
As an instructor, I gain as much from the students as they gain from my classes. Intergenerational exchange is crucial. It encourages personal growth and open-mindedness, which are qualities that are necessary for a productive life. The extraordinary community at SAIC is exciting and nourishing to everyone lucky enough to experience it.
Those of us who teach think about the legacy of influence we can offer to younger generations. Ray Yoshida, Joyce Neimanas, Doug Houston, Ray Martin, and Bob Loescher are just a few of my instructors from my time as a student at SAIC in the early 1980s who gave me invaluable lessons on how to forge my path as an artist. If I can be of service to young people by providing a role model for how to live a sustainable life in art it will be a great honor. I teach full-time during each fall semester, leaving the winter, spring, and summer to do study trips, visiting artist appointments, and work on my exhibitions. Students are excited to hear about a successful career rooted mostly in museum exhibitions and not-for-profit spaces.
Yes! One can have a beautiful life in art without selling a lot of artwork. I teach them that success is self-defined and that they can create strategies for fulfilling their vision.
