Photography
Whether exploring novel landscapes or my everyday surroundings, I use photography to create vignettes into new worlds, transforming everyday scenes into something unexpected. My propensity to daydream and escapist tendencies introduce a cognitive process into the imagemaking when I work in series or build composite images. I let myself be emotionally drawn to a subject, then I return to it over and over again, eventually discovering intellectually what my impulses knew instinctively.
Video and Installation
My conceptual video and installation practice explores how psychological processes influence self and society. Marked by cadence and repetition, the work explores unproductive mental feedback loops that influence both the personal and the political. I frequently utilize text, highlighting the power of language to change the way we think about ourselves and others.
Bio
Amber Crabbe holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and received a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2018 she was awarded a position in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellows Program and in 2012 she received the Jack and Gertrude Murphy Contemporary Art Award. She has participated in numerous curated and juried exhibitions at venues throughout the U.S., including the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, the Berkeley Art Center, SF Camerawork, SomArts, the Pacific Film Archive, Gallery Route One, Rayko Photo Center, the Smith Anderson North Gallery, the Gray Loft Gallery, and the Whatcom Museum. She lives and works in San Francisco, California.