October 7, 2011
The Coleman Center for the Arts (CCA) is pleased to present work by Birmingham artist Amy Pleasant, including a new public wall drawing in downtown York, Almost Empty, and a gallery exhibition on display at the CCA until October 30. A reception for the gallery show and the opening of a public wall drawing in downtown York will take place on Friday, October 7th from 6 to 8 pm. The event is free and open to the public and all are welcome!
Since Pleasant began working with the CCA in 2010 she has juried a local art show, offered youth workshops, given artist talks, and re-sited part of her Birmingham Museum of Art installation, Suspended. This process helped Pleasant and community members begin to know each other, and inform the artist’s gallery exhibition and public project as the work took shape over many months.
In downtown York Pleasant worked in an abandoned retail space, formerly “Straight’s Men’s Wear.” Almost Empty responds to the potential of unused spaces in York, and for Pleasant also references her native Birmingham. The sparse architectural elements point to the past or the future of the space, to unknown destinations, or perhaps to personal memories of peering through cracks of doors. Like Pleasant’s work featured in the CCA gallery, the piece conveys a sense of searching, marking the beginning potential of a new journey.
Pleasant’s gallery exhibition features work completed over the last five years. Her familiar figure drawings are dispersed throughout the gallery. Delicate figures traverse small paths across the page. They point to rituals of the everyday in an almost spiritual tone of repetition. With ambiguous gender, identity, and age some of the tiny humans are alone while others appear to be in pairs. In the tender painting Street, two pinkish figures embrace and blend into one another. The work points to personal and interpersonal moments, emotional rights of passage, and temporal journeys.
These intimate works are offset by larger, darker pieces that anchor the main walls. Sky boldly depicts in dripping black and blue the back of a girl’s head. This implicit gesture tells multiple stories–the longing for someone who has turned away, the rejection of the viewer, or an emboldened statement of young female independence looking forward. An emotional multiplicity runs throughout the show, and Pleasant’s charming pieces convey searching, vulnerability, and strength.
Through the gallery windows the Suspended installation can be seen on the adjacent field. Bringing the outside world into the gallery, the geometric clouds add a further sense of whimsy to the work. As Pleasant’s pieces are placed in locations throughout the city, viewers are invited to make their own journey through the work.
All works courtesy the Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York City.
Amy Pleasant is a visual artist who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. She holds a B.F.A. from the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art. She is represented by the Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York City. Her work has also been shown at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Columbus Museum of Art, GA and and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
This program is made possible by support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the generous contributions of our individual supporters.