Institute 193
Someone Before You
November 9-December 20, 2020
Installation view of Someone Before You | Lexington, Kentucky
Amy Pleasant
Someone Before You
November 9 – December 20, 2019
Opening Reception: November 9, 6 – 8 PM
Institute 193, Lexington
A sense of gravity is present throughout Amy Pleasant’s work. Her flattened, fragmented figures, often deep, solid black against a background of crisp white, strike various poses. Some appear to be standing still perhaps with their hands to their sides. Another shows the graceful outline of a neck looking forward or up. Many are figures in repose, at rest. Pleasant’s paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculptures engage in a dialogue with one another, using gesture and line to communicate various states of stillness and movement.
In our current political and social climate images of rest are rare. Calls to action and images of unrest bombard us on all sides as we are more than ever aware of the multitude of troubles facing the globe, many of which feel increasingly inevitable. Exhaustion and commitment to one’s work above all else are glorified as indicators of a person’s moral character and fitness within society. The subsequent physical and mental decline of the labor force become acceptable byproducts of a capitalist system that rewards growth, and only growth. The constant pressure to work harder and push further can be crippling. In spite of the state of the world around us, or perhaps because of it, Pleasant’s figures are at a standstill.
Pleasant’s work, which has often drawn a comparison to ancient sculpture, utilizes anonymous figures as players in her representations of our daily tasks: walking, running, conversing, listening, resting, and relaxing. The figures within these works, fragmented similarly to the archaeological works to which they relate, become graphic, iconic symbols for those actions. However, unlike the frequently idealized bodies favored by some ancient cultures, Pleasant’s figures are unmistakably human. Their figures surrender to the gravity of the world around them; bodies of all kind in substitute for the sculpted torsos of the past. Pleasant is designing icons for the future. While acknowledging what can be gained from looking backward (‘Someone Before You’), Pleasant works to see, too, those “standing before us” now.
