Amy Pleasant: FragmenT FOLD bloom
Laney Contemporary, Savannah
November 10, 2023 – January 13, 2024
Folding I, 2023
Oil on canvas, 72 x 108 in
© Amy Pleasant / Courtesy Laney Contemporary
Laney Contemporary presents FragmenT FOLD bloom, the second solo exhibition at the galley in Savannah, of Birmingham-based artist AMY PLEASANT. This selection of work is physical; it fragments and folds and allows the body to bloom into what feels like an ancient alphabet of gestures. The work ranges in material expression and engages the whole and the fragmented form in solitude or in serene connection.
Through a variety of shapes, Amy Pleasant’s figures embody gestures and silhouettes of stillness or dynamic interplay. Some fold into themselves while others duplicate into a twin. Still others “bloom” outward into X shapes embracing as much space as they can claim. Throughout Pleasant’s practice, bodies are distilled into shapes that perceptually shift between foreground and background, positive and negative spaces. The body merges with the letter X in Amy Pleasant’s visual vocabulary as both affirmation and negation, holding place as the “I am here” gesture. They are figurative shapes with both qualities, expressing the full capacity of human form and the incredible potential of the body. But X is just one expression as Amy Pleasant’s work explores its own language of shape and gesture, curve, and corner. It undertakes a kind of poetic alphabet of the body in a visual form. It appears these forms have always existed, as if hieroglyphic and timeless.
The exhibition encompasses many facets: painted ceramic sculptures, works on paper in ink and gouache, and oil paintings in a variety of sizes. Color plays an important, though subtle, role in Amy Pleasant’s figures. Shades of color are in conversation with one another, so soft and nuanced they could be missed. Colors and shapes establish patterns providing a playful commentary on human emotions - visualizing how it feels to “run in circles.” These repetitive forms are at times illusions of space and movement, establishing bold contrasts and emotive connections.
Amy Pleasant’s work induces the body to feel something: a stirring, a slouching, a bending, a leaning toward or leaning away. Her work explores the subtleties of the human gesture indirectly asking questions such as: What is universal about a body? Can we move closer to seeing ourselves in one another, folding, fragmenting, and blooming toward bodies and spaces of empathy? Her compositions encourage awareness of our own “micro-movements with meaning,” nudging us to lean in with more curiosity and elegance, and perhaps, even with grace.
AMY PLEASANT - BIOGRAPHY
Amy Pleasant (b.1972) received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art (1999). Pleasant is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (2018) and received the South Arts Prize for the State of Alabama (2018). Other awards include a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2015), Cultural Alliance of Birmingham (2008) and the Alabama State Council on the Arts (2019/2003).
Solo exhibitions include the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (2023), Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN (2022), Brackett Creek Editions, NYC (2022) Geary Contemporary, Millerton/NYC (2021, 2019), Laney Contemporary, Savannah, GA (2020), Institute 193, Lexington, KY (2019), Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson/NYC (2016, 2015, 2011, 2009, 2005, 2004), whitespace gallery, Atlanta, GA (2017, 2014), Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN (2016), Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA (2009) among others. Her work has been included in numerous two person and group exhibitions at venues such as Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY (2022), Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN (2022), Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA (2022, 2016), Brackett Creek Editions, Bozeman, MT (2022, 2021), Hesse Flatow, NYC (2021), SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY (2020), Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL (2019), Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA (2019), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL (2017), Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR (2017), Lamar Dodd School of Art, Athens, GA (2015).
Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, Art Papers, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Burnaway and Sculpture.
Pleasant’s first monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, was released in 2019, including essays by Daniel Fuller and Katie Geha, and was co-published by Institute 193 and Frank.
LANEY CONTEMPORARY
1810 Mills B. Lane Blvd, Savannah, Georgia 31405
