USF School of Art & Art History Alumna Amra Causevic ’16 featured in Art in America’s Summer 2023 New Talent issue

Art in America’s Summer 2023 New Talent issue includes a series of interviews with five New York–based artists to watch. A.i.A. senior editor Emily Watlington and photo editor Christopher Garcia Valle visited each artist in their studio to learn more about their art-making process, inspirations, and influences. Below, in an edited version of the conversation, Amra Causevic talks about the “sensual and cathartic” feeling of pouring paint and soothing herself via her practice.

My current body of work deals with involuntary migration and materiality. A lot of my work is autobiographical. I was born in Bosnia, and came to the United States as a war refugee in the ’90s. The Balkan region has always been a place of war and empire changes. It’s never really had a stable identity, but it still feels like home.

My dad’s side of the family migrated from Turkey to Bosnia through multiple empire changes, and every time they moved from place to place, they were kicked out, usually for religious reasons. It made me think about the material baggage and the historical baggage that we carry.

I make sculptures out of objects I collect from the streets. Hauling materials in the city has always been a challenge. How do you carry lumber on the subways? I just walk around the neighborhood and find things spontaneously: maybe stacks of egg cartons, or some little yellow plastic thing that clearly belonged to someone. I find myself wondering where these things came from, what their history is.

Read the full article at Art in America