Recent Works Opening Reception

Following a focus on bronze and stone sculptures, Bjorn Amelan made his first large-scale Sumi ink and colored ink paintings in 2008. In 2023, Amelan introduced acrylic paint to his hemp bedsheet canvases, handwoven on farms in France, that he and his husband Bill T. Jones sleep on to this day. In addition to the texture lending itself well to ink, the unstretched, foldable surfaces allow him to work with the large-scale format while in the studio and on tour as Creative Director of New York Live Arts. When hung as vertical or horizontal tapestries, the weight, density, and texture of the uncoated works create scrolls, or quilts, of a sort of abstract calligraphy.

“Bjorn Amelan’s art is to make one sonnet after another… They are luxuriant gardens of imagery yet also maps, as in mapping, as in mapping of the mind.”

– Brad Gooch

Read the full statement here!