Our 6th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Rhythm and Rush is right around the corner. We can’t wait to see the chosen work and our next soloist! Artists have until July 15th to apply, and you can submit here. Our juror this year is Catherine Haggarty. She is an artist, curator, and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Haggarty earned her M.F.A from Mason Gross, Rutgers University in 2011 and is currently the co-director of Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, New York.

Here is a short interview to learn more about her work:

Have you ever visited Nashville before? What is your impression of the city?

– I have not yet visited! I really would like to, I have heard nothing but good things about the energy and culture there!

Your paintings have an interesting juxtaposing relationship with the titles given to them. How do you choose titles?

– Titles happen poetically and as I work. They are loose, sometimes based off of songs and things I write about. I don’t want the titles to be a one to one relationship to the paintings – mostly, I try to name the titles a few steps away from the paintings.

You work on the edge of abstraction, but your paintings still seem grounded in space. Do you think of yourself as a landscape painter in any way?

– They are grounded in space. Often, when I travel I try hard to absorb as much as i can so that when I return I can challenge myself to recalibrate the space, the temperature and and the architecture of the landscape back in my studio. This is a challenge and I welcome the abstraction that happens from this translation. I suppose I am painting about landscapes but not in a typical way – they are also juxtaposed with forms I observe and draw. These forms narrate the landscapes.