New exhibitions from Sheet Cake Gallery

Sheet Cake Gallery is pleased to announce three new exhibitions opening Saturday, November 22 from 5:00 - 7:30 PM and on view through January 17, 2025, including:

• The first solo exhibition for Brooklyn-based Amelia Briggs titled drupe

• A group exhibition titled Major Arcana featuring Ariel Wolfe Baldwin (Chicago, IL), Leanna Carey (Memphis, TN), Alexandra Eastburn (Memphis, TN), Ahmad George, Roscoe Hall (Birmingham, AL), Stephanie Howard (Greenville, SC), Rahn Marion (Memphis, TN), Joel Parsons (Memphis, TN), John Shorb (Memphis, TN/Brooklyn, NY), Clare Torina (Brooklyn, NY), and Emily Weiner (Nashville, TN)

• Counter space with Amy Pleasant (Birmingham, AL) // Sense of Belonging 

Amelia Briggs’ multidisciplinary practice combines fiber and painting to create works that invoke nostalgia and play. Her three-dimensional wall hangings are influenced by a family quilting tradition and embody botanical and anatomical forms that are both otherworldly and resonant, flirting with function and the figure. The work sometimes takes shape as a life vest or bag, or has vestiges of those items such as handles, but the utility of the objects is abstracted in a similar way as the forms referenced in the images. In her exhibition titled drupe, Briggs explores the concept of an interior landscape, bringing to life the imagined worlds we inherently cultivate and shaping our perception of the environment around us. The term "drupe" refers to a fleshy fruit with a hard, hidden core, which serves as a metaphor for the body and the forms we inhabit. Her material and color choices are both seductive and unexpected, inviting closer inspection. Each piece is made from fiber, fabric, reclaimed materials, nylon, archival fabric tint, and thread.

Major Arcana is the first of a two part exhibition series inviting artists to reimagine each card of the Tarot deck. This iteration focuses on the Major Arcana Tarot cards which represent the arc of The Fool’s Journey to enlightenment and self discovery, illustrating significant life events and trials along the way. Collectively the 22 cards of the Major Arcana encompass the feminine and masculine, spiritual and material, action and stillness - encouraging deep self-reflection and examination. The 11 participating artists in Major Arcana join a centuries-long tradition of recreating the imagery and symbolism of the Tarot in their own unique ways, imbuing the cards with visual markers of the cultural, historical, and political undercurrents of their respective times. The work included in this exhibition ranges from collage, drawing, stained glass, and painting.  

Under the banner of Fall of Freedom - an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation - Sheet Cake is proud to present Amy Pleasant’s Sense of Belonging series in the gallery’s project space. This series, which includes four large-scale paintings and an ongoing series of drawings, began following the Trump administration’s aggressive roll back of DEI efforts and the banning of specific words and phrases termed “woke initiatives”. Pleasant felt compelled to write and re-write this list as an act of preservation and endurance. Each work includes some of the 250+ words including “accessible, activism, activists” to “climate crisis”, and the list ends with “women and underrepresented”. The title for this series, Sense of Belonging, a phrase also included on the list, describes the collection in its entirety, in an effort to create space and visibility for all.

These works utilize a typeface developed collaboratively with designer Michael Aberman for a monograph, The Messenger’s Mouth Was Heavy, co-published by Institute 193 and Frank in 2019. This unique alphabet created by using individual drawings for each character represents Pleasant’s career-long interest in the shared qualities of writing and drawing. Her Sense of Belonging series takes this interest one step further by Pleasant’s use of the typeface in her drawing and painting practice.