About the Artist
Ame Houston is a self-taught painter/multi-media artist. Originally from Metro Detroit, Ame has called East Tennessee home since 2019. She lives and works in a little green house with her 3 little cats and lover. Her work focuses on urban decay and gentrification, with Love Letters being her latest series. To learn more, find her on Instagram @junedogart.
Artist Statement
I’ve always found something so beautiful about decay. The patterns on broken windows, fading graffiti, vines grow lazily across the bricks, mushrooms breaking down last year’s logs - nature’s quiet resilience showing itself. Each minor detail is just a gentle reminder of how the world is still moving forward.
There’s a distinct nostalgia felt when looking at a vacant home, or driving by a defunct factory that I’m looking to capture. These hollow places were once so lively—a factory full of bustling workers chatting and fighting, an old farmhouse with a love story for the ages. Now they stand in disrepair, with only critters and ghosts to hear the stories that fill their walls.
I like to consider myself a bit of a memory keeper - spending my days collecting precious moments of sunlight, shadows, and spaces. My art is an attempt to preserve those memories - whether they are my own or are those left behind by others - and giving them tangible form for others to witness. It’s an act of reverence, a way of holding onto something precious before time inevitably carries it away.