AMANDA BENNETTS RESIDENCY

Supported by Gifted Patrons Don and Annie Boyd, Amanda Bennetts (Pomona) will undertake a Project 24 residency at 2nd Space Nambour, where she will explore the medicalised body through installation, photography and video art to develop a body of work for an exhibition in 2023. She will collaborate with a local scientist or radiographer using medical imagery such as CAT, MRI or PET scanning, to continue her explorations of the experimental intersection of art and science.

Throughout her Bachelor of Fine Arts studies majoring in Photo Art at Queensland College of Art (QCA) Amanda has created objects and experimented with new media rather than limiting herself to the constraints of the 2-dimensional image.

As someone who lives with a progressive neurological disease, her art practice is influenced by the human body and medical encounters, exploring themes including fragility, the self and death. She engages with materiality using scientific apparatus, and often incorporates medical imagery and found footage to investigate the lived experience of the ill and medicalised body.

An active member of the arts community, she founded and curated the 40 Under 40 Exhibition and Art Prize (2020-2022), which showcases artists from the Noosa and Sunshine Coast regions. In 2021, she participated in the Floating Land Festival, Noosa, Australia’s premier art in the environment event, exhibiting her first public installation, Message Obscura. In 2019 she was a Finalist in the Queensland Regional Art Awards, and her work toured to regional galleries throughout Queensland.

Image: Amanda Bennetts, The Spectacle of the Antagonist, 2022, Multi-channel video installation. Image credits: Louis Lim