Amy Pleasant

Who is Amy Pleasant?

Amy Pleasant is an American painter living and working in Birmingham, AL with representation by the Jeff Bailey Gallery. She received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 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 Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Tandem Gallery, Rhodes College, The Ruby Green Center for Contemporary Art, and the University of Alabama, Birmingham.