Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Within, a solo exhibition of work by Amy Pleasant. The exhibition opens on Thursday, January 8, 2026 with a public reception from 5 – 7 pm at our Main Street gallery. The show runs through March 6.
Heads, 2024, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 62 inches
Pleasant’s work explores the human figure, turning form into shape. She focuses on the formal elements of a body breaking it down to its basic components. The abstraction of the figure to these bold silhouettes allows the viewer to analyze more than the body’s form or identity; movement, sensation, emotion, and function become the composition of the work. The weight in the arms as they hold up the reclining figure or the intimacy of one body turning towards another, these nuances become more evident due to Pleasant’s graphic style. She is able to create these beautiful moments and say so much while showing so little.
Fragments of shared existence contextualize her body of work. The visual language of her pieces can be universally understood, all it takes is being human. Being present for the work and seeing it in person unveils even more layers to her process that are lost when viewing them through a screen. While there is a boldness to her work upon further inspection you will notice subtle nuances in the colors and shapes that change with the lighting and environment. Qualities that can really only be appreciated in person.
Artist’s Statement
At the core of Amy Pleasant’s work is her drawing practice. With ink and gouache, and a quickness of pace, Pleasant’s repetitive and calligraphic drawing process documents essential, universal motions and human behaviors. This process allows the figurative gestures to unfold across the surface, each one informing the next, developing a visual language, similar to an alphabet. These forms of the body ultimately transition into large scale paintings, wall drawings and sculpture, moving between the intimate and the monumental. Pleasant crops, fragments and flattens out the figure, re-envisioning archetypes of human representation, while speaking to the collective human experience.
Within the edges of the canvas and paper, figures perform like actors on a stage, their gestures contained and activated by their painted borders. Figures from her series Fold, close in on themselves while the central shape in Lift, presses upwards into a precarious balancing act.
Color plays an important role in this exhibition. The earthy, red of Untitled (Hands 4), is reminiscent of Alabama red clay or terracotta. Pleasant uses this dry, matte color to reveal the hand gestures that populate this large-scale painting. Painting the negative space to reveal positive shapes touches on her interest in archeology and the slow unearthing of an object, or in her case, the shapes.
Pleasant’s images, graphic in nature, are drawn on carefully considered stained and layered surfaces to create complex, yet nuanced, grounds. Visitors to the gallery will experience these subtle shifts in color, tone and texture, aspects of the work that are often lost in the digital sphere.
Legs (Stack 2), 2025, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 25 x 28 inches
About the Artist
Amy Pleasant received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1994) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University (1999).
Her awards include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award, and the South Arts Prize for Alabama.
She has held solo exhibitions at Sheet Cake Gallery, Memphis, TN, whitespace gallery, Atlanta, GA, Laney Contemporary, Savannah, GA, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, TOPS Gallery, Memphis, TN, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN, Geary Contemporary, Millerton/NYC, Institute 193, Lexington, KY, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson/NYC, Atlanta Contemporary, GA, among others.
Her group exhibitions include Bernay Fine Art, Great Barrington, MA, Taymour Grahne Projects (online), Stove Works, Chattanooga, TN, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE, KDR, Miami, FL, Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY, Knoxville Museum of Art, TN, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA, Hesse Flatow, New York, NY, SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL, Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Athens, GA.
Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, Art Papers, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Burnaway and Sculpture. Recent interviews include the podcasts Modern Art Notes with Tyler Green and Sound & Vision with Brian Alfred.
Amy Pleasant’s first monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, was released in 2019, including essays by Daniel Fuller and Katie Geha, and was co- published by Institute 193 and Frank.
Her work can be found in the collections of the Coca-Cola Fine Art Collection, Birmingham Museum of Art, Hunter Museum of American Art, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Knoxville Museum of Art, U.S. Embassy, Dubai, The Columbus Museum of Art, The Progressive Art Corporation, and The Cleveland Clinic, among others.