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Biography

Amy Funderburk is a professional artist with 24 years of experience, specializing in oils, pastels, and photography. Since she graduated summa cum laude in 1988 from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, her work has been exhibited widely across the US, including exhibitions in Chicago, Delaware, Maryland, New York State, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. She has also participated in group exhibits in both the Republic of Ireland and England.

Inspired by the ancient Celts, who revered in-between places and times, Funderburk merges surreal figurative elements into sacred landscapes to represent the presence of the divine in her current series, Images From the Otherworld. These visionary works are based on her extraordinary experiences at sacred sites. Her three journeys to Ireland led her to begin this series, and she is now expanding her source imagery to include locations in Southern England, Cornwall, and Southern Wales. Content for certain paintings is derived from meditation during yoga poses. Funderburk’s goal is to inspire both physical and psychological healing with her imagery as she explores the role of art imagery, belief, and the power of positive thinking on the healing process. She is provided with rich source material for this intention at holy wells, those natural springs or other water sources that are revered as places of healing, a continuation of the ancient Celtic tradition of venerating water.

Funderburk was one of seven artists invited to participate in an art exhibit at The Chalice Well Trust, Glastonbury, Somerset, England, as part of their 50th Anniversary Conference in June of 2009. In 2008, she was selected for inclusion in the North Carolina Arts Council online Touring Artist Directory. Three of Funderburk’s works were chosen in 2007 to travel to the US Embassy in Estonia for a two year loan. In 2006, Funderburk was honored with a Women in the Arts seed grant by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. She was awarded a full fellowship for an Artist's Residency at the Vermont Studio Center in April 2005. In 2004, she was selected as one of fifty inaugural NC artists to have work featured on the Southern Arts Federation website. She was honored as one of the recipients of the Visual Artists' Fellowship for 2002 - 2003 from the North Carolina Arts Council, and was a recipient of an Emerging Artist Fellowship Grant from the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Arts Council in 1990.

Her many commissions include an oil painting in 1996 for the Student Government Association Permanent Art Collection of Forsyth Technical Community College, Winston-Salem, NC, and illustrating the children's book Candle Lovefeast, published by Old Salem, Inc., in 1990. Other Permanent Collections that include Funderburk's work are Dubai Aerospace Enterprises (DAE Capital), Seattle, WA; The Babcock Graduate School of Business Management at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC; and the Artinian Self-Portrait Collection at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.  Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, and Who's Who in the World include Funderburk in numerous editions.

Funderburk was a freelance Exhibitions Coordinator and curator from 1989 to 2009, providing artwork for several alternative locations in the Winston-Salem, NC area. A former art instructor with the Sawtooth Center for Visual Art and Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, NC, Funderburk now teaches privately, conducts various art workshops and seminars, and has served as juror for numerous regional exhibits. She and her husband, photographer James C. Williams, led an artists’ workshop to the Republic of Ireland in 2005. Funderburk has also written freelance reviews and articles for several different publications since 1994. In the summer of 2000, she served as the business consultant to help form a co-op and membership organization in Hickory, NC.

 

Recent News

 

Click here to read Funderburk's most recent review in the Winston-Salem Journal, April 22, 2012 by Tom Patterson. 

Funderburk recently returned from a late September to early October 2012 trip to Scotland, and looks forward to including Scottish locations in her work. In May 2010, Funderburk took  her second trip to Southern England and Cornwall. This followed her first journey in September of 2008 to the South of  England, Cornwall, and Southern Wales. From each of these inspirational business trips,  Funderburk has been developing new  painting ideas that signals for her a thrilling forward momentum. Her artistic goal is to inspire viewers to feel as though they could walk into the sacred landscape to personally experience her  imagery. To enhance the effect, she plans to create custom wooden installation components for certain multiple canvas pieces. One example will be The Portal, a multiple-part painting of two standing stones in Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. Painted separately and installed on kiosks at the entrance, the stones will serve as a gateway for viewers to walk into the exhibit. She will also paint a floor piece to represent the space between the stones, allowing visitors to cross the threshold into the show. Stay tuned for these paintings and more  new artwork to result from these inspirational trips. 

The Portal -- preparatory drawing (front)
pencil on paper, 14" x 17"

© 2011  Amy Funderburk
Two giclee reproductions are currently available of Funderburk's works. Lakes of Killarney (Michael's View) will be the only giclee made from the Aisling series of Irish landscapes. Her first giclee reproduction, Manifestation of Rabbit, the first painting in the Images From the Otherworld visionary series, is also available. For more information, please email the artist.
Please see the Exhibitions page for information on current and future exhibitions of Funderburk's work, and the Workshops page for a list of upcoming seminars and workshops conducted by the artist.
 

 

 
 

Recent solo exhibition, Images From the Otherworld: New Works and a Retrospective,

at the Mary Davis Holt Gallery, Fine Art Center, Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC

  

 

 

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Updated 12/5/12

Please check back for future additions and updates.

Celtic clip art courtesy of

www.webomator.com/bws/ , http://www.celtic-clipart.co.uk/ , and http://www.aon-celtic.com .

© This website, including all images and text, are Copyright © 1990 - 2012,  Amy Funderburk. ©

All Rights Reserved. For personal on-line review only - No Rights Granted. You may not download, reproduce, copy, redistribute or use the images for any purpose without the expressed written permission of  Amy Funderburk.