WHAT REMAINS

AMY PLEASANT

OPENING: WEDNESDAY, NOV. 4, 5:30 - 7:30 P.M.

ON VIEW BY APPOINTMENT ONLY: NOV. 5 - NOV. 21

EMAIL SARAH@SARAHGORMLEYGALLERY.COM TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT

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What do we really know about the women who came before us? Beyond the family photographs, the stories passed down, and the versions of their lives we've been told?

Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, Seattle-based painter Amy Pleasant returns to her home state for her second solo show at SGG, What Remains - an important exhibition about the lives of women, the expectations they lived with, and the strength it took to navigate a world that often gave them little choice at all.

Working from vintage photographs discovered in family albums and Northeast Ohio flea markets, Amy brings these women back into view: a glance, a gesture, a certain way of standing becomes an invitation to look more closely and wonder what we might have missed.

Through painting and poetry, Amy explores what gets passed down from one generation to the next, and what gets lost along the way. At its heart, What Remains asks us to reconsider the women who came before us. Not simply as mothers, wives, or daughters, but as individuals with ambitions, disappointments, secrets, and stories of their own. And perhaps to recognize something of ourselves in them. 

As Amy writes in an accompanying poem, we are left to consider "what has been handed down and what is ours to keep."

WHAT REMAINS

Memory 

and the lingering aftermath 

of a life lived;  

the remnant 

of the treasured family photo, 

a story oft repeated, 

an idealized memory.   

As time passes,

the story is invariably 

reframed and retold.

The person becomes the story, 

that which is passed on

from generation to generation.  

We hold onto 

the visual artifacts

left behind,  

We see ourselves 

in the crook of a smile, 

gesture of a hand, 

compare our children's first photograph, 

to those whom have come before.   

We look carefully to see 

what has been handed down 

and what is ours to keep.