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 Assistant Professor in the Fine Arts Department at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Friend has exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Galerie Riviere/Faiveley (Paris, France), Houston Center for Photography, Photoville (Brooklyn, New York), 555 Gallery (Boston), Onassis Cultural Center (Greece), Pictura Gallery , (USA) GuatePhoto, Guatamela (2015), Rodman Hall, St. Catharines, ON with upcoming exhibitions at the Donggang Museum of Photography, South Korea, Getxo Photofestival, Spain and at the Mosteiro de Tibães for the Encontros Da Imagem in Braga, Portugal.
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: 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).