Amanda Besl "Riding Lessons"
Lyons Wier Gallery
This event has ended.
Amanda Besl’s most recent body of work entitled “Riding Lessons” straddles the strong bond between adolescent girls and their equine obsessions. Her subjects are at the cusp of adulthood and precariously place themselves between adolescence and burgeoning self-awareness. Besl’s work examines these seemingly simple narratives with playful yet menacing undertones.
The ability to control an animal ten times her size using only her legs, weight, hands, and voice is a powerful bonding experience for a teenager, whose physicality is shifting and morphing beyond her control.
Besl’s paintings are small in size in order to allow a more intimate viewing experience, recalling their history as photographic images. The paintings emerge from the wall as frozen suggestive moments. The artist is interested in the perception of what is ordinary to a horse-obsessed suburban teenager amidst the languid beauty of endless adolescent summer days. In fact, to view these paintings is to partake in a visual eavesdropping on the secretive world that engulfs today’s young girl.
Media
Schedule
from May 25, 2010 to June 20, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-05-25 from 18:00 to 21:00