NEW YORK, NY.- 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.

Amanda Besl received her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001 and BFA Fine Arts from SUNY Oswego, NY. She has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and US. She was most recently included in a group show at Galerie Sandrine Mons in Nice, France and at Rusart in Moscow, Russia. She resides in Buffalo, New York.

Jazz-minh Moore’s figurative work attempts to capture the physical spirit of her sitters. Her subjects are often friends and acquaintances, mostly artists and writers, who have a ferocity that they must express. Seizing a particular gesture in these ‘expressions’ is Moore’s way of revealing a wealth of emotions and applauding an array of authentic, uninhibited moments.

Ms. Moore’s deftness of hand lends itself seamlessly to her methodology. Utilizing the wood grain as a landscape to influence her compositions, some sections are left unfinished and others are highly rendered. The level of completion is an evolving collaboration between the organic drawing ‘style’ present and the wood panel itself. Once the compositions are complete, the artist then pours several layers of resin over the surface, forever capturing the content of her subjects like a moment in time captured in amber.

Jazz-minh Moore holds a M.F.A. degree from California State University, Long Beach, and a B.F.A. from Cornish College of the Arts. She recently exhibited at Pulse Miami with Lyons Wier Gallery and “BYOA” at the X-Initiative in New York. She currently resides in New York City.