The Bed, after Lautrec

The Bed, after Lautrec

February 5, 2009 – March 29, 2009

Amy Pleasant’s paintings and drawings offer a variety of male and female figures emerging from or dissolving into clouds of thought or landscapes of emotion. Seen in fragments and formed by drips, gestures, and erasures, these protagonists and their environments are both tender and tentative. Pleasant has also created wall works that feature large sleeping heads in dynamic compositions of pressed skin, closed eyes, open mouths, and messy hair, each based on her ink on paper drawings.

At the Contemporary, Pleasant created her own room-sized version of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Bed, an 1893 painting featuring two women, comfortably under covers, facing each other. This work, rendered in black, white, and various grays, created a condition of intimacy and monumentality.

Pleasant lives and works in Birmingham, AL. She has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York; Tandem Gallery, Birmingham, AL; Ruby Green Contemporary Art Center, Nashville, TN; and in group exhibitions including the 2008 Columbus Biennial, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA; and Conversations in Color, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL.

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