Advisors: Jeffrey J. Kripal and Niki Clements

Amanda Nedham is a PhD student in the Religion Department at Rice University. She received her B.F.A. in Printmaking at OCAD University and her M.F.A. in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design where she later taught experimental drawing. Nedham also co-founded a gallery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and continues to do freelance curatorial work. Nedham’s studio and curatorial practices have always been research based, and she has recently extended her inquiry to focus more rigorously on the intersection between art and belief, more specifically looking at drawing as a catalyst, collaborator and conjurer. Drawing is uniquely equipped to make the invisible visible and Nedham is interested in historical and contemporary theories of vision that have to do with cognitive extension aided through the medium. This research further probes drawing as central to self-formation and as a means to explore the concept of non-verbal humanities.