December 4, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Cost: Free
Meet Amanda Besl, the artist behind “Temple of Hortus,” an upcoming art exhibition at UB’s Center for the Arts. Learn about the process behind her botanical art and get a sneak peek of her new exhibit! This free talk and preview screening begins at 6:30pm (previously changed from 7pm) on Wednesday, December 4th during our Free Community Night.
About the exhibit:
“Temple of Hortus” explores our relationship with the botanical other. In nature, plants adapt and evolve to manipulate their surrounding communities. In our homes we give plants the window, blocking our own access to vitamin D. We anoint them with fertilizer made from blood and bone and the truly devoted build humid, temperature-controlled temples lit by electric pink suns. This art installation of botanically inspired paintings, sculptures and video explores and questions the contemporary consumerism and curation of nature through hybridization, mutation and collection.
Meet the artist!
Amanda Besl is a painter and experimental filmmaker living in Buffalo, NY. She has shown widely in New York State and in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Russia. Besl holds an MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI and a BFA from SUNY Oswego. Her paintings are part of several notable private and public collections including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo; Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo, Japan; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong and the Tullman Collection, Chicago. Besl uses natural history as a platform to explore social issues and finds inspiration in the plants she obsessively tends, which also provide props for her work. She was awarded a 2024 NYSCA grant for “Temple of Hortus,” a botanically inspired installation of 2-d, 3-d, and video work. Besl is represented by Resource Art and her 2022 solo exhibition “Blue Mythologies” at The Raft of Sanity gallery began her foray into experimental filmmaking.