Amy Friend grew up on the outskirts of Windsor, Ontario, Canada where the Detroit River meets Lake St.Clair. She studied at OCADU (Toronto) before embarking on intermittent travels through Europe, Africa, Cuba, and the United States. Upon her return she continued her studies and received a BFA Honours degree and BEd degree from York University, Toronto and an MFA from the University of Windsor. She is an Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Friend has exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibition (UK), Unseen Amsterdam (Netherlands), Gexto Photofestival (Spain), DongGang Photography Museum (Korea), Mosteiro de Tibães at the Encontros Da Imagem, (Portugal), ASPA Street Photography (Alghero, Sarginia), Beyond Boundaries, Aperture Gallery, (USA), Recits Festival, Abbaye de Silvacane, (France), and Rodman Hall Art Centre, (Canada).
In 2013, 2014 and 2015 Friend was selected as one of the top 50 photographs in the juried Critical Mass International Photography Competition and published a monograph of the Dare alla Luce series in December of 2015.
Her work has been featured in select publications such as: New York Times Magazine (USA). California Sunday Magazine, Musee Magazine, Contemporary Portraits, (Index Books, Barcelona), Creative Block, (Chronicle Books), EyeMazing (Thames and Hudson), Supernatural (&Magazine, Israel), Magenta Flash Forward Emerging Photography Competition (Canada), Virginia Quarterly (USA), Dishun Magazine (Thailand), and The Walrus (Canada).
In 2018 at ParisPhoto Friend’s work was selected for the Elles X exhibition at ParisPhoto, curated by Fannie Escoulen, showcasing 100 women photographers, from the beginning of photography to today. Friend’s photographs are included in several public collections including the Orestiadi Foundation (Gibellina, Sicily), Onassis Foundation (Athens, Greece), City of St. Catharines, (St. Catharines, Canada) and York University (Toronto, Canada).
