About

Maria Amidu’s artistic concerns are influenced by the complexities of the relational – between people and between people and place. Through writing as artistic practice she tries to substantiate what might be going on in collective situations, paying specific attention to what is hidden, obscured or unspoken. She privileges fault lines and weak spots as essential components in her artworks – fragility, fracture, instability, dissolve, impermanence, residue, mess, breaks, risk. Currently she is working with paper making, laser etching, indigo dyeing, visual and audio recordings, and what she describes as ‘the soft performative role’ audiences play in the activation of her work.

Maria was iniva’s third Future Collect artist and she exhibited new work made for the commission in her solo exhibition in the perpetual back and forth at Towner Eastbourne in 2024. In 2023, she developed two solo exhibitions: living in fear of quicksand at the Nunnery Gallery Bow Arts and Towner Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, and Untitled: an INDEX exhibition of work in progress by Maria Amidu at the Stuart Hall Library/iniva. In 2022, she exhibited in the Royal College of Art (RCA) group show Unruly Encounters at Southwark Park Galleries. In 2025, following visits to The Paper Foundation (UK) and the Awagami Factory (Japan), she will undertake a residency at Aspex Portsmouth as part of her ongoing research into writing, paper, and the relationship between artwork and gallery visitor. She is currently a part time PhD Candidate in the School of Arts & Humanities at the RCA, and the title of her practice-based doctoral research project is materialising the voice to speak from the liminal: a conversation about carelessness.

Other commissions, residencies and exhibitions include Watermarks (2021), Metal Southend; “Where?” (2020), FrancisKnight & Mid-Sussex District Council; Dream Time: We All Have Stories (2018), Nuit Blanche, Toronto; 2015, Parliament in the Making (2015), Houses of Parliament; Workforce (a work in progress) (2014), National Maritime Museum; a moment of your time (2013), People United in association with Turner Contemporary; Betty, Pat, Diane, Ivy, Lynette, Bonney (2011), Parramatta Artists’ Studios, Sydney; Dolphin Loves Disco (and other favourite words) (2012), PEER; 21st Century Reporter (2005), Foundling Museum; Tribute (2002), Arnolfini and Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital; Finders, Keepers (2001), Horniman Museum & Gardens; and …a moment caught in three dimension(s) (1999), 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning.

Her work is in several public and private collections including the Towner Eastbourne Collection, the Parliamentary Archives, the  Victoria & Albert Museum, the Arnolfini Collection Trust, and the Limerick National Drawing Collection. Maria is the recipient of several awards and grants most, recently a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant (DYCP), Arts Council England (2024). Other awards and grants: Project Grant, Arts Council England; London Arts and Humanities Partnership Scholarship (LAHP); Developing Your Creative Practice Grant, Arts Council England (2018); Churchill Fellowship; British Council Artists’ International Development Grant; Crafts Council Setting Up Grant; Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Bursary; and a Wingate Foundation Scholarship.