amy gross

In her embroidered, beaded and fiber sculptures and canvases, Florida artist Amy Gross draws on the natural world and stories she wants to tell.

Artist: Born in Oceanside, New York, on Long Island, Gross lived there for most of her life. She studied fine art at Cooper Union in New York City, then at the Skowhegan School in Maine as a residency.

Though trained as a painter, Gross started freelancing within a year of graduating, designing bedding, beach towels and toys. She spent two decades as a freelance surface and children’s product designer.

“I think I learned more about being an artist in the world from my years in the commercial end of it,” said Gross, adding that she would end her working day by making small objects and jewelry to reintroduce herself to making things by hand.

In 1999, Gross moved to Delray Beach, FL, and slowly started making things from the collection of fabrics, thread and beads she had collected over the years.

Eventually, she had stories to tell and began stitching and embellishing canvases and creating sculpture, often influenced by the Florida environment and plant life.

Studio. Created a studio at the front of her house, though the work ends up everywhere.

Art & materials: Intricate, mixed-media objects and sculptures ($1,200 to $9,800). Also installations. Work is created from primarily ordinary craft store materials, including beads, paper, fabric, thread, yarn and wire. All recognizable objects are made from scratch.

“I’m fascinated by symbiosis, both mutualistic and parasitic, and how elements interact and connect and twist and transform each other,” said Gross.

Favorite tools:

Needles with the perfect curve to them.
Thread that doesn’t break.
Strings of beads that are beautiful but look less ornamental and more like cells seeds, dew and pollen.

Inspirations/influences:

The attention to detail.
Specific light and subtle storytelling of Vermeer.
The inventive genius of Bosch.
Other artists, including: Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Petah Coyne and Fiona Hall.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s wonderful book about a 19th century woman botantist, “The Signature of All Things”.

Fun, special or unusual requests/commissions:

Invited by Culture Lab (West Palm Beach) to spend six months on an installation in an emptied department store in West Palm Beach, slowly adding to it piece by piece as it “grew” on an abandoned store display wall.
Commissioned to create nine shadowboxes for the American Embassy in Papua New Guinea as part of the Art in Embassies Program.

“Knowing my work has traveled so far away from here is still amazing to me,” said Gross.

Recent awards/honors:

In 2019, Gross was the Florida Fellow and Finalist (second) for the Southern Prize through SouthArts.
In 2020, she was the recipient of an Artist Innovation Fellowship through the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County.

Recent projects:

Part of the “Nocturne” group exhibit at the Momentum Gallery, Asheville, NC. Through Feb. 3.
Biota Consero, which she thinks of as her first landscape, for the recent exhibit “In.Visible,” at The Bascom in Highlands, NC, curated by Atlanta ceramic artist Kirsten Stingle.

What’s next: Part of a four-person exhibit, “Southeast Contemporary,” at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, GA. Feb. 16 to June 1.

Where to buy: Momentum Gallery, Asheville.

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