About Amy Sorger Fabric Collagist

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Training and Career  Amy was born in Melbourne in 1970.  In 1988 she began Architecture at the University of Melbourne, but interrupted her studies for a year to work with a landscape architectural firm in Perth. Her time there reignited her love of the Australian landscape. This period changed her direction. Returning to Melbourne in 1991, she enrolled in Horticulture at VCAH (Burnley), and later took a Master of Landscape Architecture degree at Melbourne University. It was in her horticultural studies that she became fascinated by the anatomy of flowers and plants that shows in her collages. She has worked as a Landscape Architect for a variety of Melbourne practices. Producing a vast portfolio of plans and elevations - with their close attention to detail, colour, texture, and composition – led her to non-vocational drawing, Out of these occupational threads emerged the gradual birth of her own art. From the fusion of her interest in botany and nature with her love of texture, colour, and pattern, came a unique form of collage, which expresses both the romantic and the contemporary sides of the artist.

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Influences  Amy grew up in a house of collectors and collections, which aroused her interest in form and design. Her mother’s collections included vintage clothes, braids, and materials, all of which fascinated Amy, and sparked her own collecting. At 14 she learned patternmaking from a 90-year old seamstress, so developing her interest in threads and fabrics. Camping with her parents and hiking with them across the Bogong High Plains fostered her love of nature, botany, and landscape. Her father’s pressing and mounting alpine wildflowers led to informal study of their intricacy and delicate forms. She has been fortunate to visit famous gardens, such as those designed by Capability Brown and Kent, and a great number of botanical gardens: Kew, and less well-known ones in Singapore, Korea, and Mont Pellier. Her continuing love of photography, of capturing the unexpected and the wonderful in nature, has contributed to her collage work.