Buffalo, NY — The University at Buffalo Art Galleries is thrilled to announce Amanda Besl: Temple of Hortus. In Temple of Hortus, Amanda Besl’s multimedia practice coalesces into a multilayered ode to the humble houseplant. Humans have created codependent relationships with the plants in our care—they rely on us for food and nutrients, and we arrange them to suit our whims. Houseplants give back oxygen and beauty, and we design our built environment to accommodate them. Cyclically, through hybridization, we make them even more reliant on us. The plants we cajole into growth bear the long and continuing legacies of colonialism, extraction, and ownership. Who is “allowed” to cultivate and collect? What makes a plant desirable to a person? How is “invasiveness” defined?
Besl’s paintings, videos, and sculptures explore these questions in an immersive installation, creating a hortus—or garden—temple within which to contemplate human intervention and the blurred lines between the natural and artificial. The central piece of the exhibition, a greenhouse flanked by human-sized stamen, suggests the experience of entering a flower’s pistil. Visitors are drawn into this botanical environment like pollinators, enticed by a by a looping kaleidoscopic video projection. Beyond the temple, crocheted Spanish moss, grow light-esque pink tones, bell jars, and a series of paintings and sculptures reimagine the cultivation of hybridized plants. Temple of Hortus brings together surreal and eco-gothic elements to help us reconsider the plants that we know so well…or think we do.
“What I find so compelling about Amanda’s work is the beauty of her oil paintings and sculptures, coupled with their suggestion of the uncanny. Her painted hoyas, orchids, and Venus flytraps are so seductive that you long to have them in our house–which is entirely the point,” said curator Anna Wager. Amanda Besl explains that “Temple of Hortus explores contemporary society’s relationship with the botanical other. Plants maintain a kind of immortality that humans can’t replicate. We can’t break off a thumb and plant it to clone ourselves. 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 fertilizers derived from blood and bone, and the most devoted among us construct humid, temperature-controlled temples bathed in electric pink light. When isolated from the rest of the plant and drawn in warm tones, the plant forms suggest human anatomy and the fluorescent pink surrounding them exoticizes the notion of flesh. We may forget that these are parts of plants—not parts of us.”
Emily Tucker, co-founder and director of Resource:Art, noted, “Amanda never ceases to amaze me with her thoughtfulness, creativity, and versatility. She has seamlessly integrated filmmaking, sculpture, and fiber work into her artistic practice with remarkable skill and vision. I am absolutely thrilled that UB Art Galleries and Anna Wager have provided Amanda with this opportunity to share her multidisciplinary work with a new and wider audience.”
About the artist
Amanda Besl is a painter and experimental filmmaker based in Buffalo, NY. She has exhibited widely throughout New York State as well as in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Russia. Besl holds an MFA in Painting from 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. She was awarded a 2024 New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) grant for Temple of Hortus. Besl is represented by Resource:Art.
Image Caption
Amanda Besl, Temple of Hortus (still), 2025. Digital film. Courtesy of the artist.
For high-resolution images and further information, please contact Emily Reynolds at eereynol@buffalo.edu.
About UB Art Galleries
The University at Buffalo Art Galleries’ mission is to support art and ideas that are urgent and relevant to our time and place. A unique art museum with locations in the Center for the Arts and UB Anderson Gallery, UB Art Galleries presents year-round exhibitions, providing students and the broader community access to thought-provoking art, visiting artists, and stimulating educational programs. With a growing collection and archives, UB Art Galleries provides experiential learning opportunities for students, faculty, and researchers. Learn more about how UB Art Galleries advances art as both inquiry and creative practice available to everyone at ubartgalleries.buffalo.edu.