Amy Rusch (b.1990) is an artist working across disciplines and mediums. She’s been exploring a vibrational expression of mark-making, using stitched thread into layers of found plastic bags. The layers of plastic, connected by the motion and soundscape produced by the machine, communicate aural and material aspects of our modern culture. The threads are an attempt to link and comprehend millions of years of layered stratigraphic time.

Her current body of work is informed by ocean crossings, archaeological excavations, and microscopic studies of the living world. Her practice can be seen as tracings, translations or mappings of sensory lived–body experiences, becoming multisensory coalescences of sound, vibration, line and colour. 

'Cutting, stitching, heating, pulling, binding, gathering, layering – these practices demand their own rhythm by turns slow and meticulous, then quick, fast interventions. The motions enacted in making provide a retrospective link to the embodied experiences, transmuted in the process. The machine stitching into plastic is not about replicating an experience, an object, or anything formally understood. The process is about sitting with the remnants of man-made materials; human time in contrast to the elemental and deep time.'

Recent exhibitions include presentations at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2024 and FNB Art Joburg 2024 with Suburbia Contemporary. Amy presented a solo body of work with SMAC in 2022 titled Seeing with a Listening Ear, a culmination of 3 years of making. She exhibited at the Norval Foundation as part of the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2023 finalists exhibition. She has shown work at the Pretoria Art Museum, Iziko South African National Gallery, as well as the Zeitz MOCAA.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022
'Seeing with a Listening Ear', SMAC, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2016
'Plasticity', 196 Victoria Road, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025
'Terrain', EBONY/CURATED, Franschhoek, South Africa
'Collected Memory', THK Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2024
FNB Art Joburg, Suburbia Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Suburbia Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa
'ifestile', Investec Cape Town Art Fair 'Unbound City' program, hosted by Suburbia Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

2023
FNB Art Joburg, Suburbia Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
'Liminal States', THK Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Norval Sovereign African Art Prize, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
'Room With a View', Curated by Karen Elkington, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2022
'Seeing with a Listening Ear (Artist Room)', SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
'Scratch', curated by Amy Ellen Bogen at Lion Sands River Lodge, Sabi Sands, Mpumalanga, South Africa
'Thresholds', (LINEATION Sand Times Pathway), SESSIONS Group Exhibition, Woodstock, South Africa
'Breakfast', curated by Amy Ellenbogen, Sister by Studio Ashby, London, United Kingdom
'Within the Fold II', SMAC, Stellenbosch, South Africa
'Peter Clarke Art Centre Group Exhibition', Peter Clarke Art Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
'Within the Fold', SMAC, Johannesburg, South Africa
'Art on the Walls', Art for Action, Orms Cape Town School of Photography, Cape Town, South Africa

2021
Sasol New Signatures Art Competition Finalist Exhibition, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa

2020
'Home Is Where The Art Is', Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa
FNB Art Joburg, SMITH, Johannesburg, South Africa
'Matereality', Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
'Stories', Gallery @ Glen Carlou, Paarl, South Africa
'Farewell to Good Good Friends', SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa
'Hard, but Soft', Gallery @ Glen Carlou, Paarl, South Africa
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
'Rendezvous II Summer Exhibition', SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa
'December Group Exhibition', Imibala Gallery, Somerset West, South Africa
FNB Art Joburg, SMITH, Johannesburg, South Africa
'Emphatic Whispers', SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
'Neo-Fuzz', curatored by Amy Ellenbogen, Also Known As Africa (AKAA), Paris, France
'Calibrating Wonder', SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa

2015
'Aleit & IS Art Gallery', Lourensford, Somerset West, South Africa
'Take Two: Second Life of Objects', Design Indaba, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
'The Handmade Collection(CDI)', Design Indaba, Cape Town, South Africa

2011
'The Handmade Collection (CDI)', Design Indaba, Cape Town, South Africa