Featured
Artists
Series

The Featured Artist Series is in partnership with Gasher Journal's forthcoming print issue, AFTER: A Collection of Ekphrastic Writing and Art.

Each month, we will feature an artist here and invite writers to submit creative writing in reaction to the art showcased. Select ekphrastic writings will be featured alongside the art at the gallery showcase at the Ana Mendieta Gallery at The University of Iowa May 6th - May 18th.

Submit creative responses to the featured artist's work to PRESS @ GASHERJOURNAL . C O M with the Subject line listing the month and genre. For example: MAY_Poetry.

Previous months:

November_Colleen Toledano

October_Jennifer Ling Datchuk

September_Laura Benson

August _ Padyn Humble

July _ Audrey An

June _ Emily Llamazales

January Artist: Amy Pleasant

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.

Her work can be found in the collections of the Hunter Museum of American Art, The Coca Cola Company, Birmingham Museum of Art, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Google Ventures Collection, Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Knoxville Museum of Art, U.S. Embassy, Dubai, The Columbus Museum of Art, The Progressive Art Corporation, and The Cleveland Clinic, among others.

About the art:

"My work includes drawing, painting, and ceramic 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 ceramic sculpture, all of which speak to the collective, human experience. My work is heavily informed by ancient artworks and artifacts, both text and image-based, across cultures and historical periods. I explore the fragmented figure as sign or symbol speaking to the complexities of gender and representation."