Artist Biography
Amy Pleasant received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University (1999).
Pleasant was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2018, the South Arts Prize for the State of Alabama (2018), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2015), Mary Hambidge Distinguished Artist Award (2015), Cultural Alliance of Birmingham Individual Artist Fellowship (2008), and Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship (2019/2003).
She has held solo exhibitions at Laney Contemporary (Savannah, GA), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), Tops Gallery (Memphis, TN), Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), Brackett Creek Editions (NYC), Geary Contemporary (NYC/Millerton, NY), Institute 193 (Lexington, KY), Jeff Bailey Gallery (NYC/Hudson), whitespace gallery (Atlanta, GA), Augusta University (Columbus, GA), Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IN), Atlanta Contemporary (GA), Auburn University’s School of Liberal Arts (AL), Rhodes College (Memphis, TN), Candyland (Stockholm, Sweden), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (AL) among others.
Group exhibitions include Pamela Salisbury Gallery, (Hudson, NY), Brackett Creek Editions (Bozeman, MT), Zuckerman Museum of Art (Kennesaw, GA), Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN), Hesse Flatow (NYC), SEPTEMBER (Hudson, NY), Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami, FL), Tif Sigfrids (Athens, GA), Hemphill Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.), Adams and Ollman (Portland, OR), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (AL), Cuevas Tilleard Projects (NYC), The Dodd Galleries (Athens, GA), Weatherspoon Museum of Art (NC), Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), Columbus Museum of Art (GA), National Museum of Women in the Arts (D.C.), The Mobile Museum of Art (AL), and the U.S. Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic.
Her work has been reviewed in publications such as World Sculpture News, Sculpture, The Brooklyn Rail, Art in America, Artforum, Art Papers, Bad at Sports and BURNAWAY.
Her first monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, was released in 2019, co-published by Institute 193 and Frank.
Pleasant also co-founded the curatorial initiative The Fuel And Lumber Company with artist Pete Schulte in 2013.
Artist Statement
My work includes drawing, painting, and sculpture all exploring the body and language through repetition. With a limited palette and an economy of line, my repetitive and calligraphic drawing process develops a visual language, like an alphabet, documenting essential, universal motions and human behaviors. From this “image bank”, the figurative shapes transition into large works on paper, paintings, wall drawings and sculpture, all of which speak to the collective, human experience. I explore the fragmented figure as sign or symbol speaking to the complexities of gender and representation.