Amy Cannady experienced the joy and simplicity of growing up in a small Indiana town. Her family moved to Dallas, Texas, when she was fifteen. She holds a BFA from Southern Methodist University, where she also completed postgraduate studies in Art. Amy has been deeply influenced by nature and relationships, as evidenced in her abstract painting.
In her artwork, tensions and serenities coexist, inviting the viewer to consider life's mysteries and ambiguities. Through a reduction and layering process she allows line and form to emerge, disappearing again into obscurity. There is a sense of time and space.
Painting is a language, and Amy Cannady's has been described as a kind of "Glossolalia" of its own. She invites the viewer to ponder that something has happened, is happening, or is about to happen. Amy intentionally seeks no control, but looks for the possibilities in the paint and the painting process. Her language suggests little room for dogmatic interpretation.
Cannady's most noted artistic influences, Joan Mitchell, Philip Guston, Cy Twombly, and David Smith, all place strong emphasis on the use of line. The writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Thomas Merton inform her work philosophically and theologically, each attending to the inward/outward spiritual journey.
After painting in Santa Fe, Florida, and the Midwest, Amy Cannady now creates in her studio in Dallas, Texas. Her work is in collections throughout North America as well as in Europe and the Caribbean.