I had the extreme good fortune in June of this year (2005) to come across an article on AuthorsDen, by the immensely talented and industrious Cynth’ya Lewis Reed, about a brilliant young artist known simply as Pleasant. Being one of the world’s great lovers of fine painting, sculpture, and other forms of visual creativity, I read with interest as Ms. Reed described the various challenges the artist faced while traveling abroad and seeking recognition within his hometown. Upon learning that his hometown is also my hometown––Savannah, Georgia––my interest in Mr. Pleasant’s work grew beyond passing.

Could it be that I had remained completely unaware of an artist from Savannah who was actually stirring cultural waves with critically acclaimed shows in London, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, and Sweden? After an extended visit to his web site, it was easy to see how someone with his versatility of style and boldness of creative approach would have captured the world’s attention.  With Ms. Lewis Reed’s help, I was able to exchange a couple of emails with Pleasant and that communication led to the publication of a cover story on the artist in the current (Aug 17, 2005) of CONNECT SAVANNAH. 

As it turned out, the younger Pleasant was only one member of an exceptional family of artists, writers, musicians, and educators whose collective talent forms something of a hidden American treasure.  That statement reads less fantastically when considering that his brother David is one of the most gifted percussionists in the music industry, his brother William (who is the third to share the same name as their father) an extraordinary writer, and his sister Tahari a multi-talented scholar, educator, and artist. Both of their grandfathers ––the sculptor David Carter and painter William Pleasant, Sr.–– won recognition in their respective fields. Their mother, Sadie Carter Pleasant, is a former science teacher who passed on to her offspring a penchant for analytical thinking and objective assessment. And their father, William Pleasant Jr., prior to his death in 1997, created on canvas an enduring history of black culture and history in Savannah.   

            The modern-day artist known as Pleasant, born Jalal Pleasant on December 19, 1974, welcomes the responsibility of preserving and extending his family’s cultural legacy. To do so, he armed himself with the aesthetic tools of his trade by studying at the New York School of Visual Arts with such celebrated talents as Michael Goldberg and Julian Schnabel (also known for his films Basquiat and Before Night Falls). He also enjoyed an apprenticeship with the famed Austrian curator and founder of Fashion Moda, Stefan Eins.

            Currently preparing materials for his forthcoming Chases Me exhibition, Pleasant recently took time to discuss with me his life and work.

Aberjhani: On your web site, there’s a quote from the great comedian Richard Pryor describing your work as "Wonderful art” and “really awesome artwork!" And he’s also listed as a collector of your work. Can you tell us what kind of art he owns by you?

Pleasant: Richard Pryor is a big lover of animals and nature. About a year ago [2004] I did a painting for him titled “The Dog Who Treaded Through the Field of Hope.”

Aberjhani: That particular image is quite different from much of your work because it’s more of a natural representational style whereas a lot of what you do is closer to expressionism and the abstract. And in fact, the ability to utilize different styles of art seems to be one of your major creative strengths. Was the “The Dog Who Treaded Through the Field of Hope” something Pryor requested?

Pleasant: Yeah, he wanted me to do an animal picture. And this one is really big, about 53 x 60 or something, painted with oil and gold leaf. Even though I often paint in an abstract type style or an expressionistic type style, um I do realism also. That’s where I started from, doing a lot of representational art and stuff. But I moved more into a different type of work. But I still keep my figurative painting. I’m very much a figurative artist. Conjoining sculpting and painting figures is very exciting to do.

Aberjhani: And some of your figures have been quite controversial.  With at least one of your sculptures, you gave the figure a penis that was quite apparent. It seems to me that because the figure is male [laughter] endowing it with male genitalia was appropriate.

Pleasant: I know, but a lot of people are profoundly threatened by male genitalia. And I’m not talking about people who, you know, stereotypically you would assume they must be religious conservatives and all that. No, it’s not actually. There are people who feel threatened by male genitalia for whole different reasons other than anything even related to that. They’re threatened by it because, ah, some people have a lot of difficulty with men and artists too who acknowledge men or men’s issues. So thus they automatically assume that because I gave this sculpture a penis it has to be something sexual or something homosexual—

Aberjhani: Something homoerotic in some manner?

Pleasant: Right. Homoerotic. And it’s not. It’s not at all. It’s simply a figure of a male and men have penises and thus I gave him one.

Aberjhani: Yeah, I think you’re right. That’s really endemic to our culture. If you look at Hollywood, in any given R rated movie, it’s a norm to exploit the female body, the entire female body in all kinds of ways.

Pleasant: Oh yeah.

Aberjhani: You will rarely see any whole-body nudity of a man, period, not so much with the focus on genitalia but just with genitalia simply being there as a natural part of the biological environment, whether in relation to a female form or not. But women’s bodies tend to get exploited in all kinds of ways.

Pleasant: In my work I deal a lot with issues of abusiveness in general. I’m an advocate against child abuse in particular and people abuse overall.

Aberjhani: As an artist, you have a uniquely rich background. You not only received extensive training at one of the premier art schools in the world but both of your grandfathers and your father were all accomplished artists. In addition to passing on to you basic techniques of the trade, your father shared a great deal with you both in terms of providing insight into creative aesthetics and practical tips about making your work available internationally. In that sense, he was both your father and your mentor.  Losing such a powerful source of inspiration in your life back in 1997 must have been a pretty heavy blow. How would you say his death has impacted your life and work?

Pleasant: I was broken down after he died. I was with him in his last days. And he told me all kinds of things during that time. I didn’t go to his viewing. I went to the funeral but it’s all like a dream to me, cause, the daze, I was just so broken. And I became very depressed after that. I wasn’t doing a great deal of artwork then. I was put on antidepressants that made me very ill physically. I felt like I was dying and that it was because of my father’s death. I read in some of his old letters where he was in a similar situation once in his own life. Then, at that point I decided to take back control of my life. And my friend Stefan Eins in New York, whom I met through my oldest brother––came and helped me on what I thought was going to be my last day. He understood because he had had a similar life experience in Austria. I stopped the medication on my own, against the doctor’s orders, and I, um, started my work back.

Aberjhani: Wow, that was a devastating experience! Suppose we flip that last question and look at how your father’s life, not just his death, affected your work or art?

Pleasant: His life has fueled it. His legacy keeps me going. Given all the things that have happened to me in life I should have given up a long time go. I came very close to giving up on my self, my life, my art, my everything. He wrote a poem once, my dad, and gave it to me. His original version went, “For only the lonely/ In the city of the damned./ Forever I stand here/ With only this stone in my hand.” I added my own lines to his and use the poem sometimes in my work. It goes like this:

No matter where I go,

No matter where I wander to

My life will always be lonely

In that I’m one with myself

And all those people

In places that have inspired me.

For only the lonely,

In the city of the damned,

I stand here forever

With this stone in my hand.

That small southern town,

Not so long ago,

Some never forget the tears

Of so many hurt souls.

In this line and color

I render my heart.

For only the lonely

Will understand this art that I do.

For only the lonely have lived

What I paint this day.

For only the lonely,

in that city of the damned.

Not damned of it are they

but only damned because of the struggle

from which they have to break free

in that small town,

that city of the damned,

where only the lonely understand…

                                                                        --by Pleasant ©

Pleasant: Or something like that. My father was incredible.

Aberjhani: He was incredible. And you’re incredible to have absorbed all that. I hope my tape recorder was working extremely well just now. I wrote down your father’s shorter poem that you recited but didn’t catch all the longer one. I used to be much better at transcribing stuff when I was in the military. But I think all that shorthand-taking on frozen flight-lines in Alaska did something to my fingers man. [laughter]

Pleasant: Oh yeah?

Aberjhani: Yeah, when I first started out there I used to run out on the flight-line with my little ink pen until I noticed that the ink was freezing. So then I started switching to pencils. But I definitely did my apprenticeship and paid my dues on those flight-lines. In many ways, you’ve also paid a certain kind of dues just from growing up as a creative and sensitive individual in the South.

Pleasant: My history here in Savannah has been rather turbulent. I’ve had a lot of positive experiences here too. It kind of balances itself out though.

Aberjhani: Life will do that if you let it. Getting there can be kind of rough but it will balance itself.

Pleasant: When I was here in Savannah, I originally went to Catholic school for many years. And then I went to the public school system. I had a lot of trouble there. I used to do really well on my tests and things but I didn’t do my school work, I used to draw all the time. And, um, as a result, the teachers couldn’t understand how that could be, like, “he must have some sort of developmental disability or something,” so they constantly tested me. They tested my intellectual capabilities and they saw my artwork as something negative that I needed to stop doing. I only had one teacher who supported my artwork. Her name was Betty Ziegler.   

Aberjhani: It’s amazing to hear you describe that because you would have grown up and gone to school here during…what? The 1980s? And yet that mindset was still dominant at that time?

Pleasant: Yes, I was never considered gifted or any of these things they label young people now, I guess, who draw and have different talents and things. I was considered quite the opposite and put into a special school made up of children who had developmental disabilities. I was in this special school for two years with other kids considered autistic.

Aberjhani: Wow, you had some serious southern adventures man!

Pleasant: Yeah, that stuff really, that changed me. But the thing about my experiences, though, is that there were five other kids there who also were not autistic. The rest were. And, out of those five… I’m going to reveal something very heavy to you: this is one of the places where I draw some of the energy for my art. Um, at that school I knew five kids who were all in my class. One kid came from a very poor family, he was a white kid.  And um, he was extremely gifted in regards to history and things like that. I mean the guy was an academic. There was just no doubt. He could tell you anything about American history in depth, and give you the philosophy of whomever. But because of his background he was [considered] unusual because his dad was a truck driver and he was, quote, “the redneck kid.” But he was a scholar. He totally contradicted people’s perception of what he was supposed to be. Another kid was a musician. He couldn’t read or write at all. But this guy composed music. He used to walk around with music sheets and actually compose songs and things. They said that he was stupid and ignorant. He could play guitar or any musical instrument you handed him. And he showed me his collection of musical compositions. He’d show me an entire song and say, “See, this is where the octave falls off, or this is [something else].” But he was considered stupid. Those five kids influenced me.

Aberjhani: I had a taste of that kind of treatment in the eighth grade when my English teacher for the first half of the year gave me all F’s because she said the papers I was turning in were too good for me to have written them. She flunked me even when she stood over my shoulder and watched me write. Her rationale then was that I must have memorized the text. Fortunately, she transferred during the middle of the year and for the second part of the school term I made straight A’s. So I can empathize with you being categorized as something you were not simply because you possessed an aptitude for creativity. 

Pleasant: The day that I left that school, two of the other students came up to me. And the kid who did the music, he said, “Pleasant no matter where you go, no matter what you do, never forget us.” He said no matter where you go always remember that we are your brothers. We are your true brothers. And he said we’re just like you and though we might not survive this life, in everything you do keep us in mind.

Aberjhani: Even though that was an extremely painful time in your life, as you pointed out it has fueled a good bit of your creativity and it eventually led to the creation of an exceptional sculpture, correct?

Pleasant: I designed an art piece that has to do with all of that, about the school system and about that stuff, and it’s an art piece I’ve never shown. It’s big. And it’s titled, For Only the Lonely.

Aberjhani: That’s interesting that you gave it the same title as the poem composed by your father.

Pleasant: I didn’t construct the piece until the year 2000 because I needed all those years to find within myself the energy to create it. I mean I could have made it physically but it wouldn’t have captured that feeling or that energy that I wanted to put into it. And um, one day I want to reveal that piece in Savannah and let people know.  It wasn’t so much about me as it was an entire generation.

Aberjhani: What you were dealing with is a mindset that makes certain pre-judgments about individuals which they have no right to make. And it can be dangerous, and it can be destructive, as you have pointed out in much of your work, and uh, I think you’re going to be very much obligated to reveal that sculpture you haven’t shown yet. It’s strange but I suspect that any number of creative men, as adults, probably still go through what you went through as a child. It’s like despite all the examples prevalent throughout history, the concepts of masculinity and certain forms of creativity are supposed to somehow automatically cancel each other out.

Pleasant: And then the African American aspect gets brought into it where people believe that I’m whining to either disgrace somebody or sort of feed off something. And I’m like, No, I’m creating solutions but at the same time I’m documenting something very real, as artists have done throughout history. 

Aberjhani: Even though your work is highly technically proficient, in many ways it is also stripped-down raw with screaming expressionistic images of people in their spiritual or emotional forms. They often seem to be under attack of some kind or as if they themselves are exploding energy. But one of your mostly stark images is the somewhat more realistic one of a woman that you call She Fought To Feel Life.

Pleasant: She was this woman that came to me when I was in New York and I had just learned about my dad coming down with cancer. And there was a woman outside the window. I was really low at that point. I was living in a kind of pantry type room. And, um, I was going through a lot of emotions and I rendered that particular work when I saw this homeless black woman outside reaching in a garbage can.

Aberjhani: Now when you say she came to you, did she speak to you at all?  And, um, did you address the issue of your father’s death in your communication with her.

Pleasant: It was more of a feeling I got of a struggle, of her holding on, of a sort of enduring moment and taking those moments that happened and using them to create a stronger everlasting future, to grow strong. She Fought to Feel Life came as a result of that because the image of the woman in the garbage can and the reality of her life. I mean I was low but the lady was even lower because she didn’t even have a place to stay.

 Aberjhani: That particular image is a graphite sketch but you also work in sculpture and, obviously, paint. Do you have a favorite medium? Or do different mediums allow you to express yourself in different ways?

Pleasant: I utilize different mediums, but for me oil painting is pretty much where it’s at in regards to painting. I do some mixed media work but I don’t like acrylics. Acrylics suck. They have no depth. Um, they’re really nice paints, I guess, to render some things in but in terms of depth and being able to lock a sort of spiritual energy into an image, oil painting has that capacity. To sort of go deeper. The colors are deeper, thus I’m creating a stronger feeling or mood for the observer .

Aberjhani: I’ve never heard that before. It seems to me that a lot of the most popular work around now is done in acrylics. I have to admit that I like the brilliance of those colors.

Pleasant: You see a lot of nicely rendered paintings in galleries and stuff, but those that have captured a sort of presence are the ones that stand out most. Nice paintings can be light but they’re dismissed almost immediately. But when you go into like a portrait gallery, like the national gallery, and you feel like the paintings are watching you, and you feel the eyes following you, or you just get like a really serious deep feeling from a painting, that’s sometimes even scary, and that’s that presence. Some people are frightened by it. Some people, they’ve never experienced it before, so they equate it with something negative because they don’t understand how the painting is affecting them on that level. 

Aberjhani: Wow, that’s powerful, but now that you’ve spelled it out that way I have to agree because the cover on the first edition of my first book, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry, was based on an oil painting by Gustave Blache III. I later realized that far more people tended to be immediately attracted to the book with that cover than later editions without it. I knew that Gustave’s image itself was highly appealing but never thought about the impact or attraction it might have because it was done in oil.

Pleasant: It’s on a plane of reality that science can’t measure, that sort of influence. It’s the same science of art that advertisers use, the manipulation of sound and colors, and certain types of lines and textures to manipulate people’s moods. However, oil paintings go a bit deeper in that not only do they affect your perspective on things but they can actually directly influence your spiritual self as well. Which some other art processes are incapable of doing. It’s like music.  It’s like hearing the sound of a drum live, the bass of a real drum live, and then listening to it over the radio or on a CD, when it’s been digitalized and re-mastered. They take the energy out. And it’s the same with art too. There’s a particular type of energy.

For more on the artist known as Pleasant, please visit his web site at THE ARTIST PLEASANT and see the aforementioned article in CONNECT SAVANNAH. Also, look for more on Pleasant in an upcoming edition of REDBRIDGE REVIEW.

Aberjhani

© 8/21/2005