Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present Amy Pleasant’s first solo exhibition in New York, The Lure of Telling. Exhibition dates are March 17 - April 17. The opening reception is Thursday, March 18th, from 6-8pm.
Amy Pleasant’s paintings and drawings depict unfolding narratives. Each painting is organized by a grid-like structure similar to a cinematic storyboard, in which various characters act out scenarios in step-by-step animation. Figures, alone or in groupings, are drawn with thinned paint to evoke a sense of immediacy and action. Multi-layered veils of paint suggest a built up history in the work, and imply that each time a story is or told remembered, it changes, if only slightly.
The wall paintings found in caves, Egyptian tombs and Roman bathhouses feature images from daily life and mythical tales. Pleasant’s storyboards refer to more modern forms of storytelling, such as animation and filmmaking. The storyboard is a device that showcases a visual thought process which changes and develops over time, ultimately developing a narrative. Pleasant explores the space between unfinished and finished, where the potential outcome of the story, and the painting, is still shifting.
In a series of drawings of ink on paper, the figures move within a space reminiscent of planetary systems. These systems map the paths of individuals and the points at which these paths intersect with one another. The intersections are the point at which lives weave together and create a more complex structure.
Amy Pleasant received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Alabama in Birmingham and the Ruby Green Contemporary Arts Center in Nashville.
Jeff Bailey Gallery is located at 511 West 25th Street, No. 808, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, from 11 - 6. For further information, please contact the gallery at 212.989.0156 or jeff@baileygallery.com.