A self-taught artist with a background in literature, Manitach merges an affinity for drawing and language in large-scale works on paper. Drawings are made with the fine point of a mechanical pencil to build a scrim of marks—countless lines woven to amass bold, block text situated in dense fields of graphite or nestled amongst cascading patterns inspired by the arsenic-laced, hysteria-inducing tangle of fin de siecle wallpaper design. Often pieces take the form of palimpsest, where drawings undergo multiple passes of mark-making and erasure, building layers of legible and illegible text intermingled with ornamentation. Manitach’s process is both laborious and meditative, ticking off the passage of time while leaving physical traces of the self, and perhaps a grand statement or two. The message varies: from screamingly profane to defiant, at one turn brimming with ache, the next bubbling with crude humor or dreaminess—embracing the fullness of human experience and the urge to occasionally howl.

In addition to her practice as a visual artist, for the past 15 years Manitach has worked in Seattle as a curator and arts writer, as well as founding numerous artist-run spaces. She is currently represented by Winston Wächter Seattle and Winston Wächter New York.

www.amandamanitach.com

How has your relationship with art changed over time?
It started with obsessively drawing on the backs of church bulletins to stave off boredom during my father’s church sermons. Drawing as a practice has always been compulsive—and the most fulfilling thing I do. Over the years my love of writing and the arts has merged and overlapped in multiple ways, and drives everything I do. I’m a slave and a slut for art.

Where do you find inspiration? What drives your work?
History, beauty, money, endorphins, the thrill of being around other artists, the satisfaction of feeling connected to others through my work, the sublime weirdness of the feeling that art is more powerful and permanent than me—and that, yet, somehow I am also a part of this enormous thing.  

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What is your favorite part of your process?

Most every part except deciding which is the final mark. Putting down the pencil and letting go. Letting it be.

What is one thing about your art and/or practice that our audience may not know?

Like many old paintings that have other, ghosted paintings underneath them only visible with X-ray, my drawings are often literally a process of palimpsest, with lots of pieces of erasure and half-erasure, leaving pentimenti traces where I altered course, changed my mind, decided to start over. I guess it began as a way to conserve and reuse expensive paper, but now I like the subtle texture it creates, as well as the hidden archaeologies of process.

What does your dream piece/project look like?

Massive-scale text-based skywriting pieces in all kinds of mediums—like fire, smoke, drones. Ephemeral poems, statements, fragments of proclamations written across the daylight, text that illuminates from within clouds, projected against a bank of clouds, or sparking to life for a moment in the gloaming. (Maybe some are only visible by chance to air travelers passing by. Others occur closer to earth.) They’ll be scattered through time and space, some artworks scheduled to occur even after my death, showing up in the weirdest places like poetic Easter eggs: a sort of Situationist dérive that disrupts the everyday.