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Ama_Liza

Ceramic, Drawing, Fiber, Jewelry, Multimedia, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

Other names: Amanda Howard

About the Artist

Ama is a Baltimore born foundationally Black and Aegean interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the layered complexities of identity through the lenses of ancestry, mixed-race heritage, motherhood, spirituality, sexuality and femininity through expression. Utilizing various media, she crafts visual narratives that delve into the interplay between personal history and collective memory. Often using bright colors and light to convey by any means necessary at times it may feel that her work takes no prisoners. Her art serves as a conduit for examining the intersections of cultural hybridity and spiritual introspection, often reflecting on the nuanced experiences of motherhood and the embodiment of feminine strength from experiences serving in the military, alternative model work, being a young mom and being a woman in arts. Through her creative practice, Ama invites viewers to engage with themes of transformation, resilience, and the multifaceted sacredness of the divine feminine experience. By weaving together elements of her diverse heritage and personal journey, Ama's work offers a poignant commentary on the evolving nature of identity and the enduring impact of ancestral legacies.

Ama_Liza website MSAC

Artist's Statement

Painter in Textiles who works with porcelain and Natural Dyes 

Featured Work

Photos

This self-portrait captures the layered emotional and physical reality of navigating life as a single mother in Baltimore while managing both visible and invisible disabilities. Rendered in shades of deep indigo and muted blue, the figure appears partially dissolved into her environment—an echo of how trauma and responsibility can blur the sense of self. The seated posture, with crossed legs and downturned toes, conveys both vulnerability and endurance. Her form is partially obscured, her head dissolving into a dark, stormlike cloud—a symbolic expression of PTSD’s heavy mental fog. The ink bleeds and washes speak to the fluidity of emotion, the instability of routine, and the constant shift between resilience and collapse. The right side of the image, dominated by a loosely defined table or bench, hints at domestic life and caregiving—yet it’s only half-present, almost fading. This visual instability mirrors the artist’s constant balancing act: sustaining a home, managing pain, surviving trauma, and raising a child with limited support. Though fragmented and heavy, the portrait is not without strength. Each brushstroke resists erasure, asserting presence even in dissolution. It is a meditation on persistence amid change, a raw testament to the cost of survival, and a quiet call for compassion for the unseen labor carried by many women like her.
In this surrealist self-portrait, the artist confronts the fragmented psyche of a woman living with PTSD and the lasting echoes of sexual trauma. The composition is scattered yet connected by thread-like tendrils, symbolizing the tenuous bonds between moments, lovers, memories, and wounds that have yet to fully scar over.