MFA, Sculpture, Cranbrook Academy of Art; Post Baccalaureate Certificate, Maryland Institute College of ArtBA, Art, Hiram College
Amber Kempthorn explores time and nostalgia through drawing. She is a graduate of Hiram College, the Maryland Institute of Art, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art where she received her MFA in Sculpture in 2008. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S., including in the inaugural Front International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art and the Cleveland International Film Festival.
In 2019 she received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a $54,000 Knight Arts Challenge Akron grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for her animation project, Ordinary Magic: A Sunday in the Cuyahoga Valley, a series of four animations visually translating Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes (1945). Blending traditional hand-drawn and contemporary computer animation, Ordinary Magic builds on the tradition of playfully merging classical music with animation, premiering with live accompaniment by the Akron Symphony Orchestra in October 2022. Also in 2022, Kempthorn was awarded a Cleveland Arts Prize Award for Emerging Artist and was the recipient of the Cleveland Institute of Art's Dan Tranberg Teaching Excellence Award.
Work:
Areas of Specialization & Technical Knowledge: Drawing, Animation, Public art, Printmaking, Collage
Exhibitions:
- Buddy System, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
- Sweet Monotony, Sally Otto Gallery, University of Mount Union, Alliance, OH
- Ordinary Magic: A Sunday in the Cuyahoga Valley, Cleveland International Film Festival, Cleveland, OH
- The Great Lakes Research, FRONT International, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
- Cosmic Glow, Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Peninsula, OH
- More is More: Visual Richness in Contemporary Art, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
Awards and Recognition: She is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and numerous grants; including a $54,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for the creation of her animation, Ordinary Magic: A Sunday in the Cuyahoga Valley that visually translates Benjamin Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” (1945). Building on the tradition of playfully merging classical music with animation, Ordinary Magic premiered with live accompaniment by the Akron Symphony Orchestra. In 2022 she was awarded a Cleveland Arts Prize for Emerging Artist and was the recipient of the Dan Tranberg Teaching Excellence Award.
