Artist Amy Pleasant recently visited the Lamar Dodd School of Art to work in conjunction with Printmaking and Book Arts to create an edition of prints that will be sold at this year’s ART PAPERS Art Auction. Graduate and Faculty Printmakers worked with Pleasant over the course of a week to pull screenprinted editions of an image that Pleasant created during her time at the Dodd. Although Pleasant doesn’t normally work as a printmaker, the visual language she has created translates readily to screenprinting. The group pulled over 100 prints in order to create an edition of 55.

Amy Pleasant’s work includes painting, drawing, and ceramic sculpture, all exploring the body and language through repetition. Adopting the structure of a diagram or list, Pleasant explores the fragmented figure as sign or symbol. With a limited palette and an economy of line, she draws images like writing a letter, documenting essential, universal motions and human behaviors. This repetitive drawing process creates a visual language over time, like an alphabet.

Born in 1972 in Birmingham, Alabama, she received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art (1999). Pleasant was recently awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2018) and the South Arts Prize for the State of Alabama (2018). Other awards include the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award (2015), Mary Hambidge Distinguished Artist Award (2015), and Individual Art Fellowships from the Cultural Alliance of Birmingham (2008) and the Alabama State Council on the Arts (2003).

She has held solo exhibitions at Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson/NYC; whitespace gallery, Atlanta, GA; Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, IN; Birmingham Museum of Art, AL; Atlanta Contemporary, GA; among others. Her work has been included in numerous two-person and group exhibitions at venues such as the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, AL; Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN; Cuevas Tilleard Projects, New York, NY; Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA; Lamar Dodd School of Art, Athens, GA; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN; and Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Greensboro, NC.

Her work has been reviewed in many publications including Art in America, Art Papers, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail and Sculpture.

Pleasant’s work is in numerous collections, including the Birmingham Museum of Art, The Progressive Art Collection, and Art in Embassies.

Art Papers is an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization with an educational mission to provide accessible forums for engaging with contemporary art and culture through their magazine, website, and live programs.

Taking place on the first Saturday in March, the 20th Annual ART PAPERS Art Auction will be held at the Southern Exchange at 200 Peachtree Street, a beautifully transformed event space in the heart of downtown Atlanta. The evening features works by 250 leading and emerging artists from around the world, offering art lovers, both seasoned and novice, the opportunity to build their collections while enjoying a great party. All proceeds benefit the award-winning programs of ART PAPERS.