Amanda Blake is a Portland-based artist that uses her inter­ests in things such as reli­gious and lit­er­ary sym­bol­ism, imag­i­nary friends, con­sumerism, and wild­flow­ers to drive her art and image making.

Amanda really has a gift for cre­at­ing atmos­phere and space. It’s moody and sort of eerie at the same time — every­thing exists in a haze, like a mem­ory or thought that isn’t exactly clear. From this, Amanda intro­duces us to char­ac­ters that are them­selves ambigu­ous. Sub­tle expres­sions do not give way to a clear emo­tional response from her sub­jects, and even her weirder worlds seem to be accepted with­out reservations.

Aside from con­tent and con­cept, I really love how Amanda’s paint­ing. It’s sat­is­fy­ing to look at, and is a great com­bi­na­tion of opaque with ele­ments that were taken away. It’s painterly. Using heavy strokes that show, she uses them to carve out dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments of her pieces, and uses her brush as our emo­tional guide.

All images via Amanda’s web­site. You can also buy her work on Etsy.