About
Short Bio
Amber Biscevic is an emerging artist based in San Francisco. She loves trying new mediums, with her primary focus being on oil painting. Amber moved from Florida to California in 2010 and is currently enrolled in Academy of Art University's BFA Fine Art program for Drawing and Painting. She will be graduating in June 2021. Amber finds inspiration in things like social and political commentary, Dadaism and Surrealism, and landscape painting.
Statement
My work is largely figurative, and I don’t usually paint more than one or two people in a scene. I really enjoy the intimacy of focusing on individual human subjects and exploring emotion and expression through them. I always work from a photo reference, and I have to feel a connection to the image and be inspired by it in some way. Sometimes I’ll see a photo that inspires me and I’ll be able to immediately start working, but more concept-driven pieces take additional time to really plan out. I like to consider all of the elements that go into my work, from the size of the canvas to the color palette and level of expression. I do almost all of my planning and conceptualizing in Photoshop before moving to the canvas.I use oil paint because of its rich consistency, versatility, and forgiving nature. In order to take advantage of the texture of the paint I use palette knives, especially for my backgrounds. I sculpt and push the paint around and across the edges of forms, blending realism with abstraction. Tension is a painting that I created in the spring of 2020 and represents my best work in this style so far. I was just starting to explore stylization, intentionally moving away from academic realism. I wanted to incorporate more conceptual ideas in my work and decided to try intentionally breaking some traditional rules. Flying forward in the painting is a leaping man with a sword, caught in the moment before he brings down a blow, arms and legs stretched behind him for maximum force. I cropped the composition so that his knee, foot, and hands create tangents on three sides of the image, creating visual tension to accompany the figure’s. The teal background was applied with a palette knife, and is cut by a big swath of cadmium red. These thick, impasto colors overlap and disrupt the figure in various areas, including a portion of the face, obscuring the man’s identity.
Resume / CV
EducationBFA 2021 Fine Art Academy of Art University (cum laude)
Grants and Awards
2020 Third place Spring Show award Abstract Tension (20”x24” oil on canvas)
2018 Academy of Art University Student Success Grant
2017 Academy of Art University Summer Portfolio Grant
Group Exhibitions
2021 Lacuna Art Festival: Distance, Virtual
2020 Spring Show Academy of Art University San Francisco, CA
2019 Duo Exhibition Oakland, CA
2019 Bay Area Prints Compound Gallery Oakland, CA
2018 Spring Show Academy of Art University San Francisco, CA
Bibliography
B. Gangelhoff “21 Under 31: Young Artists to Watch in 2020” Southwest Art Magazine September, 2020 79
Selected Courses
2021 Contemporary Painting Kevin Moore
2021 Intermediate Studio Kevin Moore
2021 Quick Studies Tomutsu Takishima
2020 Clothed Figure Painting Tomutsu Takishima
2020 Head Painting Kevin Moore
2020 Surrealism, Stylization & Expression 1 Kevin Moore
2020 Wildlife Painting Craig Nelson
2019 Composition and Painting Tomutsu Takishima
2019 Expressive Heads and Hands Kevin Wueste
2019 Introduction to Painting: Figure Kevin Wueste
2019 Intermediate FIgure Drawing Kevin Wueste
2018 Color and Design Chenoa Warner
2017 Figure Drawing Kevin Wueste
Experience
Undergraduate Fine Art student Representative
