Amy Pleasant

Painter and sculptor Amy Pleasant has spent her entire career developing her own visual vernacular—figuratively and literally. She is fascinated by historical documents, “written languages and symbols and calligraphy and hieroglyphics and all of those kinds of things,” and prehistoric cave paintings. These ancient artworks, Pleasant says, were essentially an “act of mark-making … this human need to leave something behind or to create images of yourself.” Five years ago, she collaborated with a graphic designer on her first published monograph, which included an alphabet based on Pleasant’s sculptures, paintings, and drawings. Now she’s resurrecting this alphabet in a series called Sense of Belonging, currently on view at Sheet Cake Gallery in Memphis.

The four paintings in the series list words and phrases, rendered in the artist’s own hieroglyphic-like alphabet, that have been banned or associated with “a liberal agenda,” such as “diversity and inclusion” or “the climate crisis.” The series is Pleasant’s way of making her own semiotic mark on the world. The symbols refer back to her entire body of work: As become arms, Ss bent legs, and so on, shapes found in her previous geometric sculptures and drawings of human bodies. In her mind’s eye, she wanted the four paintings to seem as if they had been Xeroxed over and over again, so she used several shades of black and gray paint to achieve a monochromatic, streaky look. Pleasant likewise sought to emphasize the unique characteristics of handwriting: the way our individual personas appear in things as simple as notes or doodles. With the series now on display, she hopes to demonstrate a similar individuality in her paintings, each one tailored to be representative of her own hand and her approach to the current political era. “Art really marks a moment in time,” she says. “I’ve thought of these works as historical documents.”

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