Amanda Thomas is a photographer, curator, and bookmaker. She composes colorful photographic still lives and self-portraits using a feminine gaze, a sense of play, dramatic natural light, ephemera, and objects in transition (wood that is not yet ash but was once a tree). Her practice is led by connection to the physical body, our dying planet, ghostliness, natural life cycles, and memory. Thomas is interested in the human experience and our ability to exist within dualities such as grief and hope, peace and tension, love and heartbreak. She works with analog photo processes to share with the viewer moments that feel magical.

Thomas received her BFA in photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020. Thomas curated with Cherry Knot Curation 6 artist exhibitions, Arson is a Woman’s Work (2024), I Used to Have a Favorite Tree (2023), House of Worship: Narratives of Sex Work and Art (2023), Portrait of Perfect Grief (2023), What If We? (2023) and Double: Artists in the Industry (2022). Thomas was a resident artist at Pillow Fort Arts Center in 2023. She has exhibited her work at Earth Day Every Day (2023), What if We? (2023), Double (2022), On View no. 1 (2021), The School of the Art Institute Undergraduate Exhibition (2020), Jerks Production’s Fused Underground (2018), Camden County College Student Show (2017), Raw Artist Show (2017), Camden County College Student Show (2016), and Drexel University Photo Exhibition (2013). Her work is published in The Luupe (2021), SAIC Photography Department Catalog (2020-2021), and in Mouth Magazine (2019). She has been awarded The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Distinguished Scholar Scholarship (2018), Camden County College Program Excellence Award in Photography (2017), Peter Popolizio Art Scholarship (2017), Find Your Art School Photo Contest Finalist (2013), and Drexel University Photo Contest Nominee (2013).