There is a wonderful phenomenon that happens to me from time to time. I call it “name serendipity”. Every so often when I search an artist’s name on Google, I happen upon the work of another talented artist by the same name! Which is exactly how I happened upon the work of Seattle artist Amy Pleasant.
Like Amy, I too, have a collection of vintage photographs from my grandparents’ collection and they are among my most treasured possessions. In her latest series, Lost and Found, Amy was inspired by the discarded memories of strangers. Namely old family photos found in thrift shops and antique stores, now being sold along with old tablecloths and broken lawnmowers.
Captured moments of past lives now cast away like any other piece of household paraphernalia. Pleasant rescues these memories that have been tossed aside, giving them new life in paint.
In them, we see not the memories of strangers but our own ancestral rememberings staring back at us. To see more of Amy Pleasant’s work, please visit her website. Her work can be seen in her show, “Looking For the Coolidges” opening August 2, 2012 at the Shoreline City Hall Gallery in Shoreline, WA. And on August 1st, she will be the featured artist (along with Dutch artist Janneke Van Leeuwen) at the Visual Thinking Strategies European Symposium in partnership with the Rijks Museum and will be showing at a gallery on site at a large hospital in Amsterdam(! ).
Featured image is Three Graces, mixed media, 40×30. All images are via the artist’s website.
