Dr. Amy Bowman-McElhone is a mother-scholar, curator, educator, and art historian who currently serves as Chair of the Department of Art, Communication, and English, Art Gallery Director, and Assistant Professor in Art History and Curatorial Studies at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, PA. She formerly served as the Director, Chief Curator, and Assistant Vice President of the Pensacola Museum of Art and Historic Trust Museums at the University of West Florida. Her research areas include contemporary art and critical theory, maternal feminisms, curatorial histories, memorial ecologies. She serves as co-curator and senior research fellow for the Anthropology of Motherhood project, and sectarian mural practices in Northern Ireland. She is currently working on the book project, “Maternal Anarchy: Anthropology of Motherhood, Visual Art, and Cultures of Care.” She received her doctorate in Art History and Criticism from Florida State University and her MA from West Virginia University. Her dissertation is titled “Freakish Student: Mike Kelley, Artistic Pedagogy, and Institutional Critique” and her research has been published in the Journal of Curatorial Studies, ARTS Journal, and in several edited volumes.

Education 

• PhD – Art History and Criticism, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
• MA – Art History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
• BA – Art History, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

Professional Memberships

• Anthropology of Motherhood
• Aptropaicas Colectiva
• American Association of Museums
• College Arts Association 
• Association of Arts of the Study of Arts of the Present
• South Eastern College Art Conference

Research 

Interests: Contemporary Art and Critical Theory; Maternal Feminisms; Curatorial Studies; Memorial Ecologies; Sectarian Mural Practices in Northern Ireland

Curatorial Projects

• Co-curator, “I Forgot to Laugh: Humor and Contemporary Art,” Pensacola Museum of Art and Carlow University, Pensacola, Fla., and Pittsburgh, Pa., 2020-2021
• Co-curator, “Anthropology of Motherhood: Culture of Care, Carlow University Art Gallery and Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, Pa., 2020-2021
• Curator, “Worn In / Worn Out: Soul of the Shoe,” Pensacola Museum of Art, University of West Florida, Pensacola, Fla., 2019

Publications

• Bowman-McElhone, A., “Visual Acts of Care: Moving Mercy Towards Justice in Contemporary Art in Katrina Andry’s The Promise of the Rainbow Never Came,” 20: Twentieth Anniversary Anthology MFA in Creative Writing, Carlow University Press, 2023.
• McElhone, A., et al., “The Battle Is Joined: Contemporary Art and Contested Memorial Ecologies,” Social Science Quarterly, 2021
• Bowman-McElhone, A., Germana G., “Asserting the Vernacular: Contested Musealities and Contemporary Art in Lima, Peru,” Arts Journal, 2020
• McElhone, A., Persuit, J., “Memory-Place and the Unintentional Monument: Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena (1961-2012) and its Legacy,” chapter in “Contested Commemoration in U.S. History: Diverging Public Interpretations,” eds. Melissa M. Bender and Klara Stephanie Szlezák, Routledge, 2020
• Bowman-McElhone, A., Germana G., et al., “Exhibition Reviews: The Vacant Museum: Half a Century of Peruvian Museotopias (1966-2014) at MAC Lima” Journal of Curatorial Studies, 2016

Awards & Recognition

• Senior Research Fellow, Anthropology of Motherhood
• Frances Ward Spirit of Mercy National Award, Conference for Mercy Higher Education (2021) 
• 40 Under 40, InWeekly Magazine, Pensacola, FL (2019) 
• Beard Travel Award, Department of Art History, Florida State University (2017) 
• Mason Dissertation Research Grant, Department of Art History Florida State University. (2016) 
• Rose Teaching Fellowship, Department of Art History, Florida State University. (2021 – 2016) 
• Meyers Foundation Grants for publication of the exhibition catalog for Mediated and for work as registrar and exhibitions assistant for the Art Museum of West Virginia University. (2008) 
• College of Creative Arts International Student Travel Grant, West Virginia University. Travel grant for thesis research in Northern Ireland. (2008)