Dopamine, 2023

Amelia Coward  

Amelia Coward is a British mixed media artist whose practice brings together colour, geometry, cartography and material craft. Trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, her work is rooted in colour theory and informed by her background in woven textiles. She creates 3D geometric compositions from vintage maps, hand-painted wood, vintage book pages & archival printed materials, using repetition, structure and precise assembly to explore colour, place and human connection.

Maps are central to Coward's practice. Her 3,000 sq ft studio houses an archive of over 40,000 original maps collected over 25 years, which she uses as both medium and colour palette. She combines maps dating back more than 100 years with more modern examples, drawn to the way borders shift, place names change and territories are divided through geometric lines, dotted boundaries and political markings. Through cutting and reconstructing cartographic fragments, she explores movement, migration, memory and belonging, as well as humanity's long-standing compulsion to divide, define and claim land.

Coward is particularly drawn to the dot as a form. For her, the circle creates the ultimate focal point, a small window into a specific place. Each individual map dot invites a journey: where is this place? who lives there?, what is their life like? and will she ever go there? The studio can be an expansive but physically containing place, especially within the demands of a labour-intensive practice and life as a female artist with children. Through her maps, Coward travels imaginatively, often researching the remote islands, coastlines and far-flung places she discovers within the fragments she selects.

Colour is equally central to the work. Her compositions explore how colours interact with one another, using carefully balanced relationships to create unity from fragmentation. In this sense, colour becomes a way of bringing divided places, histories and materials into a more united visual world. Rainbow colour is often used symbolically within Coward's work, evoking unity, acceptance and connection in response to themes of fragmentation, division and belonging.

Alongside her map-based works, Coward also creates non-map pieces from hand-painted wood, vintage botanical imagery and other printed ephemera, continuing her exploration of colour interaction, rhythm, repetition and spatial balance. Her works are held in private, corporate and hospitality collections internationally, with placements including Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina and Almoosa Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia. In 2025 her designs were licensed by British Airways for the Club World amenity kit collection.