An American painter and stencilist, Amanda Marie Ploegsma, better known as simply, Amanda Marie, has been living and painting in Colorado since 2001. She attended the Rocky  Mountain College of Art and Design and has exhibited extensively in Denver and Europe.

Drawing upon illustrations and characters reminiscent of iconic mid 20th century children’s books, Amanda Marie, has co-opted a homogenized depiction of an ideal Modern American childhood to her own contemporary devices.  Using spray paint and stencils to reproduce her main character’s ad infinitum, white, well-groomed boys and girls, she plays on the sameness and ubiquity of this instantly recognizable representation of wholesome American innocence. The modified kids in Amanda Marie’s artwork, often with a distinct resemblance to the artist herself, are forever caught ungrounded and out of context, hovering in space, blasted by expressionist splatters, floating within geometric diagrams, and encountering surreal scenarios well beyond the simple comfort of seeing spot run.

Art. Worth. Seeing. (Illiterate is at 82 s. broadway.)