Margery Amdur is a Philadelphia --based artist who works in a variety of mediums. She was formally trained as a painter and printmaker.
For most of her adult career she has worked as either a painter who has created her art with unorthodox materials and formats, as she states, “I have always wrestled with keeping my marks with the confines of the picture plane,” or an installation artist where she has been able to organically grow her labor intensive processes into monumental environments that surround her viewers. She continues to ponder the questions about what in the 21st century qualifies as painting as well as issues of gender, femininity, and beauty.

Margery has never been married to one particular material or process. Yet, it is her connection and chemistry with materials that fuels and inspires her. Cosmetic sponges are the most recent “building blocks”. She manipulates commercially produced cosmetic sponges to create new shapes and formations that echo luscious and voluptuous “living walls” geometric basalt land formations, and aerial views of what appears to be urban sprawl. Over the course of her career she has vacillated between working with luscious and sensuous color combinations and more subdued and restrictive color palettes. Her recent constructions continue to exhibit her ability to navigate a wide range of color palettes, scales and formats.

A new generation of her work, once removed from the initial adventures with cosmetic sponges, has begun to trace itself into existence. Abstracted linear manifestations, personal topographies are the offspring and inspirations ignited by incredible Icelandic landscapes. She has returned to silkscreen resurrecting an old labor of love, and a way to tattoo linear markings onto sponges and walls.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Margery Amdur received her B.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University and her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Margery has had over 60 solo and two-person exhibitions. Her international exhibitions include Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and England. Margery is the recipient of more than a dozen awards and grants. She has been reviewed in national and international publications including Sculpture Magazine, New American Paintings, Fiber Arts, New Art Examiner, Art Papers, and in two of the Manifest International Publications. Her work was on the cover and featured in the fall 2014 issue of Art Voices. Margery completed her first major permanent Public Art Commission where she created and installed 4000 square feet of permanent art work on vestibule platforms in Philadelphia's Spring Garden underground transit station. Between 2012 and 2014 she was an artist fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ox Bow artist residency, Saugatuck, Michigan, Nef a Moulin residency, Auvillar France, and Gulkistan Residency, Laugavartn, Iceland. In 2014 she had solo exhibits at the Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Ellensburg, Texas, and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington Delaware. In 2015 she will have solo exhibitions at The University of South Texas, McAllen, Texas, and the Gulkistan Exhibition Space, Langavartn, Iceland. In addition she will install a fifteen foot site-specific installation in the Philadelphia International Airport.