I work in a wide range of mediums and formats from painting to sculptures, creating installations, video and photographic works, and live performances. My work explores the physical nature of materials that relate back to the domestic environment, such as bread dough, bed sheets, and fresh produce. It simultaneously engages the labor processes used when working with these materials. My practice embraces the challenge of removing the domestic associations of these materials by placing it within new contexts. Of course, my attempts fail because the materials themselves have too strong a relationship to the domestic to fully remove their associative meaning, some having been born within it, such as bread dough. I see this as a similar battle to my position in the world, having been raised within a traditional immigrant family in Australia, where gender roles were clearly in place and the domestic stage was set from birth.

As a material focus, bread dough connotes the life cycle; once activated by warm water and sugar, the cells of yeast split and divide, similar to when an egg is fertilized by sperm. There is a peak moment when dough is voluptuous, full, and ripe, just before it begins to ‘die’. This attraction to the materiality of dough relates back to my childhood as an immigrant, where dough was no foreign matter and gender roles were clearly in place. My first memory and experience of femininity and the power of creation (and potentially female desire) was watching my mother knead this soft, white, voluptuous material. Folding the dough over onto itself, and pushing her whole body towards it, she transformed the ingredients from flour and water into a living organism created for pleasure and for life.

While there are many similarities between the life processes of dough and my body that emerge through my art, labor is high amongst them. Labor exists in navigating any female experience and the creation of life. Dough, when put in the context of my work, expands out of those confines I create—a parallel that serves to empower, until it dies. This expansion is at the core of the work that I create and my experience as a female where we are taught to confine ourselves both physically and emotionally.

Santina Amato was born in Australia to Italian immigrants, and has lived and worked in the USA since 2010. She works in a wide range of mediums and formats from painting to sewn sculptures, creating installations, sculptures, video and photographic works, and live performances. Amato is interested in the physical nature of varying materials that relate back to the domestic environment, such as bread dough, bed sheets, and fresh produce, and labor processes used when working with these materials.

Amato is current Artist-In-Residence at Governors Island with 4Heads and received an MFA (Photography) from the School of the Art Institute

of Chicago (2017). The Illinois Arts Council Agency, the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events and the Australian Council for the Arts have supported her. Exhibitions and screenings include Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Here Arts Center, NYC, Governors Island Art Fair, NYC and Detroit International Videonale, Kuntshalle Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art, MI.

Amato has held positions as Fellow and Artist-in-Residence at MOCA Tucson supported by the Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA), MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA supported by the City of Chicago's DCASE, 2018 IAP Grant, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN, Process Park, Artslant & Chashama, Pine Plains, NY, Filed/Work Program, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago, IL.  Her work has been included in publications such as Emergency Index,

CreateMagazine, and Lenscratch.

In 2016, Amato Founded and Directed Moving_Image_00:00, a biannual festival in Chicago of moving image works by Chicago-based artists that ran until 2019. Her work is part of a collective photographic portfolio at The Joan Flasch Artist' Book Collection and The Art Institute of Chicago, and video collection at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia and the Samek Art Museum, Lewsiburg, PA.

2021

Artist-in-Residence, 4 Heads Portal, Governors Island, NY, USA

2020 

Artist-in-Residence, Bethany Arts Community, Ossining, NY, USA

2019 

Grant, Professional Development, Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA)

Grant, Individual Artists Program (IAP), City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE)

Artist-in-Residence, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ, USA

2018

2018/2019 Hot Pick Artist, Smack Melon, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist-in-Residence, Process Park, Artslant & Chashama, Pine Plains, NY, USA

Artist-in-Residence, Crosstown Arts Center, Memphis, TN, USA

Artist-in-Residence, MASS MOCA, North Adams, MA, USA

Grant, Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA) Individual Artist Support Project Grant

Grant, Individual Artists Program (IAP), City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE)

2017 

Artist-in-Residence, Field/Work (2017/2018), Chicago Artist Coalition (CAC), Chicago, USA

Artist-in-Residence, ACRE (Artists' Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions), Steuben, WI, USA

Writing Fellow, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

2016 

Honorable Mention Award, ExFest 2016 Film/Video Festival, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Angela & George Paterakis Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

Writing Fellow, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

2015 

Leroy Neiman Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

Travel Grant, Ian Potter Cultural Trust Fund, Melbourne, Australia

Artist-in-Residence, Summer Artist Institute, LMCC/ Creative Capital, New York, USA

2014 

Project Grant, Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, American Australian Association, New York, USA

Fellow, BRIC Arts | Media House, Brooklyn, NY, USA

2013 

Artist-in-Residence, Immigrant Artist Program, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, USA

Artist-in-Residence, Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia

Artist-in-Residence Summer Studio, Blindside Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne, Australia

2012 

Finalist, Toyota Spirit Travel Award, Australia

New Work Early Career Grant, Australia Council for the Arts, Australia

ArtStart Initiative Fund, Australia Council for the Arts, Australia

Artist-in-Residence, New York Artist Residency & Studio Foundation, New York, USA

Artist-in-Residence, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

2011 

Finalist, Toyota Spirit Travel Award, Australia

2010 

Honourable Mention, Kala Art Institute Fellowship Program, USA

Travel Grant, Copyright Agency Limited, Australia

Finalist, Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize, Australia

Artist-in-Residence, Kala Art Institute, San Francisco, USA