Born in Amman, Jordan, Ammanda Seelye Salzman grew up between the Middle East and the United States, an experience that informed her worldview, as well as her artistic subject matter. While a student at Hampshire College, Seelye Salzman held her first exhibition in Tunisia in 1976. There she used her exposure to North African Culture and Society with her reading of post-colonial criticism to produce large oil paintings based on her observations of North Africa. Graduating from Hampshire College in 1975 with her Bachelor of Arts, during her later studies at the Art Student's League (1978-79) as well as the National Academy of Design in New York City (1989-91), Seelye Salzman focused on the nude, where she explored the nuances of identity politics and the very center of human consciousness.

In 1997, Seelye Salzman graduated from The Heatherley School of Fine Art in London with a portrait degree, during which time she was inspired by the work of Lucien Freud and other contemporary British portrait painters. Upon completion of the two-year program, Seelye Salzman won the Heatherley's Portrait Award. In 1997, she exhibited her work at Heatherley's Fine art Gallery in London, as well as the Luchsinger Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut in 2000. In 2006 she was invited to show several pieces that explored age and sexuality in the show Woman: Self Portrait at Kashya Hildebrand’s then-New York space.

In 2012 Seelye Salzman was invited to exhibit at Abu Dhabi Art as part of the Signature section and in 2013 she exhibited her paintings in Norwalk, Connecticut at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking. More recently, she had an exhibit in Kuwait City, Kuwait in October 2013 with the CAP Gallery. And in December 2013 exhibited her work at Miami Art Basel.

Seelye Salzman lives in Riverside, Connecticut, with her husband and two daughters.