About Amanda Sumpter

Working first as a painter and then as an installation and performance artist, I graduated from the MA course at Chelsea College of Art in 1991. Since this time, I have continued to work across practices, often blurring the lines that can exist between different disciplines. Drawing has always remained a constant activity bridging the gap between thinking and feeling. Marks, words and materials are arranged on a piece of paper and a relationship is created between them and between them and the white space that surrounds them. The process is intuitive, it simply feels right.

A chance encounter with stone carving in 2004 introduced me to processes that have enabled me to directly apply this intuitive way of working in three dimensions. Each carving evolves like a drawing. Relationships are created between the curves and the planes of the piece and the space in which it sits as a singular object, or as one sculpture connected to another or to a material or object with specific autobiographical significance.

My work is concerned with exploring what is seen and what remains hidden. The carved lines and fluid forms of the sculptures hint at an energy suspended within the stillness of the stones. My paintings emerge from a cycle of building up and taking away to hide what lies beneath the surface of each deceptively simple piece.

Artist Resume

Education

Chelsea College of Art and Design MA Fine Art

Brighton University BA (Hons) Fine Art

Prizes and Awards

Winner of the Art Gemini Prize for Sculpture 2024

Selected Group Shows

2024

Winter Artist Open House, Portland Place, Brighton

‘Launch’, Electro Studios, St Leonards-on-sea

‘A minimal aesthetic’, Gallery 57, Arundel

Finalists Exhibition Art Gemini Prize 2024, London Lighthouse Gallery, London

Contemporary Art at Fox Lodge, Artwave, Fletching

Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral, Wells

‘Landmarked’, Gallery 57, Arundel

South East Open Studios, Ashdown Pottery, Fairwarp

‘Stillness’, Gallery 57, Arundel

Cuckmere Sculpture Exhibition, Coastguards Cottages, Seaford

Artist Open House, No 1 Rigden Road, Hove

Artist Open House, Portland Place, Brighton

2023

Artmaze Exhibition, Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, London

Contemporary Art at Fox Lodge, Artwave, Fletching

John Skelton and his Legacy, Artelium, Streat

South East Open Studios, Ashdown Pottery, Fairwarp

2022

Amanda Sumpter and Ysidro Pergamino, Atelier Beside the Sea, Brighton

Skeltons Sculpture Exhibition, Blabers Mead, Streat

Contemporary Art at Fox Lodge, Artwave, Fletching

South East Open Studios, Ashdown Pottery, Fairwarp

Publications

‘Amanda Sumpter’: Small volume written & published by An Nguyen with images by Taylor Littleton