Amy Bessone

Kindly donated by Gallery 12.26

Amy Bessone (b. 1970) is a Los Angeles-based visual artist whose practice across media challenges cultural representations of the female body, incorporating various art historical and kitsch references from Greco-Roman nudes to dime-store porcelain pinups. Subverting notions of female figuration and the male gaze, Bessone’s work addresses the dichotomies of high and low, gender and form. Using the physical body as a literal and conceptual framework, the artist exposes the fetishism of objects, both in the art world and as feminist theory.

Bessone was recently the subject of a solo exhibition, Amy’s World, at 12.26 in Dallas (TX) in 2021. Other recent solo exhibitions include Playlet, curated by Elaine Levy, with Oleksandrssssssss, Brussels (BE) in 2021; Reclamation Island at The Pit, Los Angeles (CA) in 2019; and In the Century of Women at Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles (CA) in 2016.

The artist is currently included in BOZO FAMILY HOEDOWN at M+B, Los Angeles (CA) through February. Recent group exhibitions include Cracked, curated by Leonie Mir, at Tristan Hoare, London (UK) in 2021; Tiger in a Tropical Storm at Louise Alexander Gallery, Sardinia (IT) in 2021; All of Them Witches at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (CA) in 2020; Riders of the Red Horse at The Pit, Los Angeles (CA) in 2020; Yarrow Pickers at Harper’s Apartment, New York (NY) in 2020; and NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, which traveled from the Rubell Family Collection, Miami (FL) to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. in 2016.

Bessone’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA); the Rubell Family Collection, Miami (FL); the Saatchi Collection, London (UK); and Frac Bretagne, Chateaugiron (FR).