Steamboat Pilot & Today

The settings are social, and the drama between the characters vivid. Their creator,
Amanda Adare, cut her teeth at the Art Institute of Florence and in various studios in Rome, and the results are beautiful. A set of her paintings now showing at the Depot depicts, in her words, "the drama of human society" with everyday moments of psychological significance applied to canvas with exquisite care.

Originally from Sydney, Australia, Adare came to Steamboat Springs by way of Florence, Rome and Telluride. She had always wanted to study in the Renaissance capital, which she "found magical, inspiring, and unbelievably beautiful." Eventually she moved to Rome, where she spent three years working, feeling "creatively propelled by the bedlam." From there she came to the United States.

"I am drawn to and inspired by music, philosophy, and my own diverse, cultural experiences," she explains. The diversity of her experiences is reflected in her work, which draws on a variety of cultural and artistic traditions, most notably impressionism.

"I have always loved to observe and draw and paint people," she says. "I am very interested and engaged by human emotion." The spaces she paints tend to be interior public forums such as lounges, bars and living rooms, and the people in them captured during a melancholic, unguarded moment. It is this bottled episode in time captured in her work that seizes the viewer's attention. The people are often caricatures, at once sad and funny.

"When I was younger I drew grotesque images, mostly faces of people in typical places," she says. Two of her favorite painters are Van Gogh and Picasso, and their influence is clear. "I'm attracted to the drama of human society," she adds.

The drama could not be more compelling.