Amber Cowan

American, born 1981

BiographyAmber Cowan’s work asks universal questions about rebirth, knowledge, desire and the transformative powers of labor and imagination. Her fantastical grotto-like assemblages are made of re-worked pressed glassware, once produced by some of the best known, but now-defunct, American glass factories. In her most recent, narrative wall sculptures, she creates intricate and exuberant settings for character-objects, which she has collected over years. Unabashedly showing her emotional investment in these objects, Cowan pays spontaneous and spectacular homage to the history of US glass manufacturing.

Cowan received her MFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in museums across the United States, Europe and China, including solo shows at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design (2014) and at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA (2017). Her pieces are included in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass (2014 Rakow Commission recipient), Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, RI, and are promised gifts to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY and the de Young museum in San Francisco, CA.

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