Amy Friend

The North Star Watches

Amy Friend Biography Over the past decade, Canadian artist Amy Friend has garnered international praise for her photographic work that explores the intertwined relationship of the past and present. In her series, Dare alle Luce, an Italian term meaning “to bring to the light”, Friend collects, hand alters and re-captures vintage photographs to bring them new meaning and life. The process involves Friend projecting light through found photos that she manipulates with punctures and cuts to give them an ethereal glow. This process returns the images to the light that originally created them, while also creating brand new works that oscillate between that which is present and absent, old and new. She is currently working on a project that bridges and blends personal archives related to migration with broader perspectives on the experience. Raised in Canada on the outskirts of Windsor, Ontario. She received a BFA Honours degree and BEd degree from York University, Toronto as well as an MFA from the University of Windsor. Currently she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University, Niagara, Canada. Amy Friend’s process driven work has been included in national and international exhibitions, projects and festivals including, Gexto Photofestival (Spain), Museum London (Canada), Onassis Cultural Center (Greece), DongGang Photography Museum (South Korea), GuatePhoto (Guatemala), Mosteiro de Tibães at the Encontros Da Imagem (Portugal), Rodman Hall (Canada), Photoville (New York, USA), and at the Abbaye De Silvacane, La Roque D'Antheron (France) and at the Bibliothèque Nationale De France for the exhibition, L’épreuve de la matière, curated by Héloïse Conésa. Her work has been featured in select publications such as, New York Times Magazine (USA), Keeper of the Hearth (Amsterdam), California Sunday Magazine (USA), GUP Magazine (Amsterdam), LUX (Poland), EyeMazing (Thames and Hudson), Time Magazine (USA), and The Walrus (Canada). Her work was selected for the prestigious Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Competition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Friend published the now sold-out monograph, Stardust with L' Artiere Publishing, Italy in 2017 and has a new publication in the works. In 2018 Friend was selected for the Elles X exhibition at Paris Photo, curated by Fannie Escoulen, showcasing the work of 100 women photographers, from the beginning of photography to today and is included in the 2023 anniversary publication. Amy Friend’s work is held in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale De France (Paris, France), Onassis Center (Athens, Greece), Hèrmes Foundation, (Paris, France), York University (Toronto, ON), City of St. Catharines, (Canada), York University (Toronto).