Background

Amy Brener was born in 1982, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is a daughter of Roland Brener, who was a sculptor.

Education

Initially, Brener studied at the University of British Columbia, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Arts in 2006. In 2010, she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Hunter College. Also, in 2011, Amy attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Career

For many years, Amy has been creating sculptures, capturing found objects in layers of poured resin. Her earliest resin sculpture is titled "Switchboard" (2011) and looks like a surfboard, leaning against the wall. Before the resin works, Amy made sculptures, that loosely resembled vehicles or machines.

During her career, Amy has had numerous solo and two-person exhibitions, including "The In Between", with Facundo Argañaraz, at Greene Exhibitions gallery, Los Angeles (2013), "Cloud Quarry", with Michael Doerksen, at Deluge Contemporary Art gallery, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (2013), "Recliners", at MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario, Canada (2014), "Flexi-Shield", at Julius Caesar gallery, Chicago, Illinois (2016), "Invisiblers", at Galerie Pact, Paris, France (2017), "Shellwork", with Karen Azoulay, at Erin Stump Projects, Toronto, Ontario (2018), among others.

Also, Brener has participated in many group exhibitions, including "Image and I", at Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto, Ontario (2010), "Saturation Point", at Dutton Gallery, New York City (2013), "Cemeterium", at Regina Rex and Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Florida (2014), "Broken Colours", at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario (2015), "Tu es Métamorphose", at Galerie Pact, Paris, France (2017), "Towards a New Archaeology", at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York City (2018), and others.

In 2012, Amy held the post of an artist-in-residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2014, she was made a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The following year, in 2015, Brener was made a fellow in Crafts and Sculpture at New York Foundation for the Arts.

Currently, Amy lives and works in New York City.

Achievements

• Amy Brener is a well-known artist and sculptor, who gained prominence for her works, which capture found objects in layers of resin. Her work has been featured in publications, such as CURA, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, V Magazine, Artnet News and The Brooklyn Rail.
  
  During her career, Amy received several awards, including the Canada Council Visual Arts Project Grant, Shifting Foundation Project Grant and Emerging Artist Fellowship.
  
  The artist's works are kept in different collections, including the Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne, Germany; the Francis Greenberger Collection, New York City; the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, New York City; the Liz and Jonathan Goldman Collection, New York City; and the Rachofsky Collection, Dallas, Texas.

Works

More photos

• sculpture

  • Omni-Kit (Mantle)

  • Omni-Kit (Birthday)

  • Hangar

  • Power Dome

  • Drifter II

  • Fort-Dress

  • Flexi-Shield (bumper)

  • Drifter

  • Flexi-Shield (earth mother)

  • Omni-Kit Altar

  • Dressing Screen (larimar)

  • Omni-Kit (harvest)

  • Invisibler Expecta

  • Omni-Kit (jasmine)

  • Omni-Kit (menthe)

  • Demi-Screen

  • Invisibler (aqua)

  • Omni-Kit

  • Flexi-Shield (spring)

  • Dressing Screen (adobe)

  • Dressing Kit

Views

After her father, sculptor Roland Brener, died in 2006, Amy began incorporating casts of his face into her video work, questioning promises of improved health through the application of medication and growth stimulants. Over time, her use of the face became the basis of sculptural practice, using mold-making and casting.

The utilitarian objects, that Brener uses in her sculptures, include, but are not limited to, combs, hardware, toothbrushes, watches and pills. She casts computer keyboards, pills within pill containers and other everyday items, and combines the results in sculptures. Through this process, Brener strips objects of their functionality, asking viewers to see them abstractly in relation to ritual and archaeological practices. Employing new materials, such as plaster, and creating new semi-figurative sculpture, her latest work combines objects and materials, which, meshed together, compress time and space and evoke a feeling of nostalgia.

Many of her sculptures Amy labels under the term "Omni-Kit", which she began using around 2016. She came up with it as a nod to "variety packs", filled with school supplies and sold at the end of summer, which she remembers from growing up in the 1990's.

Quotations: "My pieces are artifacts from an imagined future."

Connections

Father:

Roland Brener

During his lifetime, a South African-born Canadian artist Roland Brener was one of the most fearless, innovative sculptors and influential educators in Canada. He worked as an artist for 40 years and produced an enduring body of work, that is in major collections across Canada.