Amy Pleasant

Amy Pleasant
Nationality	United States
Education	The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tyler School of Art
Known for	Painting, Drawing, Wall Drawing

Amy Pleasant (born 1972) is an American painter living and working in Birmingham, AL with representation by the Jeff Bailey Gallery (New York, NY). She received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

Pleasant is best known for her figurative, free associative paintings and drawings that explore simple, daily acts in slowly unfolding narratives. In an article from Art in America, Max Henry wrote that her work “chronicles everyday life…full of existential angst and loneliness, her paintings are able to evoke an empathetic response from the viewer.” David Moos wrote of Pleasant’s work that through “fragments of overlapping narratives” the viewer is allowed to “glimpse the formation of images” and is “made aware of how the painter makes decisions in paint, amending a passage and visibly editing the composite image.”

In addition to the Jeff Bailey Gallery, Pleasant has held solo exhibitions at the Birmingham Museum of Art, The Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta, GA), the Tandem Gallery (Birmingham, AL), Rhodes College, The Ruby Green Center for Contemporary Art (Nashville, TN), and the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

Pleasant has participated in group exhibitions at venues such as the Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), The Weatherspoon Museum of Art (Greensboro, NC), the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, GA), the Wiregrass Museum of Art (Dothan, AL), the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC), the Art Museum of the University of Memphis (Memphis, TN), the Mobile Museum of Art (Mobile, AL), the United States Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, and the Huntsville Museum of Art (Huntsville, AL).

The recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham and the Alabama State Council on the Arts, her work can be found in the collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Wiregrass Museum of Art, and the Progressive Corporation, as well as in many private collections.

Articles and Media

• “Reviews: Southeast”, Art Papers (2003)
• “Amy Pleasant at Jeff Bailey Gallery”, Art in America (2004)
• “Critics Picks New York”, ARTFORUM (2004)
• “Amy Pleasant’s After the Death”, Women in the Arts (2005)
• “BAMA”, Art Papers (2005)
• “Art with Economy of Silence”, The Commercial Appeal (2006)
• “Intimate Relationship”, Lipstick Magazine (2008)
• “Tight Shot”, The Brooklyn Rail (2009)
• “The Physics of Personal Identity,” The Nashville Scene

External Links

• Artist website
• Amy Pleasant at Jeff Bailey Gallery, NY
• Amy Pleasant at The Drawing Center
• Amy Pleasant at The Birmingham Museum of Art