AMY CUNEO
MOTH(ER)
"The invisible, the unwitnessed, the isolated, these are the unloved." — Nick Cave
Moth (er) is born from the unusual proportions and perspectives of mothering young. A son carries a moth into the studio to inspect it. How have I never noticed the tiny soft body of a moth before?
Physical exhaustion. The slowing of time. The expanding of all that is small, simple, and low — suddenly a substrate for fresh perspective. This body of work is an explorative and expressive outcome of a time of life I am cautious to discard. The uncomfortable terrain of caregiving makes way for something vivid and bright to unfold.
Like a caregiver moving quietly through the night, moths pass unnoticed — peripheral, unwitnessed. These works attend to the small. In drawing moths to the foreground, scaling them up, the upside-down love heart shape of a moth became a vessel for pattern, symmetry, colour and playful exploration. To witness them is an act of love.
Amy Cuneo is a multi-disciplinary artist working and living gratefully on Dharawal land. Cuneo’s subjects link us to essential and reassuring elements in our lives. Flowers, food, a window framing the sky, these are images that bind, as clearly as their colours shift under changing light. Her everyday assemblages weave lived experience and the natural world. The comforts of home are pictured in her work in their intimate objecthood. Enduring themes of care-giving, motherhood and the natural world are found in her work. Born in Charleville, Qld in 1985, Amy Cuneo grew up in country NSW. She graduated from ACU in 2012 with a double major in Visual Arts and Literature. She has exhibited in various group exhibitions from 2017. She has held solo shows with AK Bellinger Gallery, Michael Reid Southern Highlands and Egg & Dart Gallery. In 2023 her work was selected to be a part of a major exhibition with Bett Gallery (Hobart) illuminating prominent women in Australian Still Life. She has been a finalist in many art prizes, most recently the Ravenswood Art Prize (2026), Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize and the Flow Watercolour Prize at Wollongong Art Gallery, (2023). Her work is included in various private collections throughout Australia, New Zealand and Sweden and has been collected by Tiers & Co Collecting Group.