Amanda Besl continues her exploration into the female adolescent world as depicted in teen magazines. She uses imagery drawn from magazines such as CosmoGIRL whose content explores the complexities of a cultural aesthetic that fetishizes youth. In her current work, Besl evokes an open-ended narrative while questioning the unfettered glamorous lifestyle portrayed as truth via the documentary manner in which the subjects are captured.

Ms. Besl’s small oil paintings average 7” x 10”. She utilizes this small scale to allow a more intimate viewing experience and to recall the source materials history as a photographic image. The work pops from the wall off beveled edges to create a staccato rhythm of frozen suggestive moments. The pieces feel cinematic in nature, and allude to film stills from a grander narrative. The subject matter balances on the fine line between the mundane and the obscure. These paintings are not nostalgic, except as personal nostalgia. They are not apologetic or hedonistic and have any number of possible endings or possibly no ending just a pause, a breath.

Amanda Besl has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and US. She was recently in Beyond/In Western New York Biennial, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. She received her MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001 and BFA Fine Arts from SUNY Oswego, NY. She currently resides and paints in Buffalo, New York