Bio

Amber McElreath is an Akron-based assemblage and collage artist who uses found objects in her work to tell autobiographical stories in a surrealistic style. Most of the work is very small which is meant to convey intimacy and vulnerability. Her two inspirations are Frida Kahlo and Joseph Cornell.

Amber was born in Landstuhl, Germany and raised in East Liverpool, OH. She got her BFA in Fine and Professional Arts from Kent State University and graduated with her MA in Art Therapy and Counseling from Ursuline College. She worked as an artist assistant to Brooklyn-based artists, James Seward and Erin Racheal Hudak. She has shown her artwork in the Cleveland and Akron areas. Her most recent solo exhibition, Future Tripping and Backward Wandering, is scheduled for August 26th-September 26th, 2024 in the Sally Otto Gallery at Mount Union College. Her previous solo exhibition, Memories, Dreams, and Ruminations was in 2016 at Studio 2091 Mothersbaugh and her two-person exhibition, Delivering Stores (with Karen Koch) was in 2017 at the Box Gallery in Summit Artspace. In 2023, she participated in the annual members show at the Artist Archives of the Western Reserve and in a show called the Infinite Mix the YARDS Projects, in Cleveland. In 2024, she was in a two-person exhibition with Annie Becker at Gallery 202 in Cleveland. Amber had a mini retrospective in the July 2024 exhibit at 934 Gallery in Columbus, OH. Her work is in both public and private collections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Georgia, Washington, and Maryland.

Amber is a Licensed Professional Art Therapist (LPAT), Registered/Board-Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC), and the Intern Coordinator at the Art Therapy Studio. She belongs to the Artist Archives of the Western Reserve, Artists of Rubber City, and Akron Soul Train. She is represented by Gallery 202 within 78th Street Studios.