Amanda Bright
Head of the School of Art, University of Brighton, UK.
Over the last 15 years Amanda Bright has chaired and contributed to a wide range of Academic Reviews and Validations in the UK and internationally, and having been a Subject Specialist and Institutional Auditor working with QAA for several years, in 2016 she was appointed as a Specialist Reviewer for the Hong Kong Council for the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).
Her subject background is in metalsmithing and the applied arts, and her passion for making, for materiality and for ‘learning by doing’ sit at the heart of everything she does.
Educated at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art, London, from where she graduated in 1987, she specialised in patination and in the material properties of metal, particularly ferrous metals. In 1988, as part of the bi-centennial celebrations in Australia, she was invited to Canberra School of Art to represent the UK in a Metalsmith’s masterclass, and ten years later, in the catalogue accompanying the major metalwork exhibition, ‘Metalmorphosis’, at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, (Nov 1998 – Feb 1999) was described as ‘one of the most original and influential metalwork artists of her generation’.
She is best known for her innovative exploration of textile techniques in metal, and her stitched and woven metal forms have been purchased for a number of national collections in the UK, including The Crafts Council; Contemporary Arts Society; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; South East Arts Craft Collection; Ulster Museum; and the Walker Art Gallery. Her interest in stitch and in metal and textiles continues.
She has led public workshops and given lectures across the UK, Europe and Australia and her work has been exhibited widely at venues including the V&A, London; the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Galerie für Angewandte Kunst, Munich; Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway and Dutch Textile Museum (DTM), Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Prior to her post at the University of Brighton she was Associate Dean of Academic Development at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.