Ground Floor Studio artist, Matt Christy, currently has a solo show up at Red Arrow Gallery through February 16th. The show, including recent collaged paintings, is titled The Vibrating Neighbor. You can check it out now by calling ahead any day. Red Arrow is also open Saturdays, 12-4pm. On February 1st at 6pm Matt will add a collage of video, readings, and sound

Two Heads, 13″ x 17″

Tiger, 7′ x 6′

to his exhibition followed by a Q&A. Mark your calendars!

Artist Statement:

The Vibrating Neighbor could refer to the neighbor that plays dance music too loud and shakes your walls, or perhaps to the sound of a roommate’s libidinal enjoyment, or even, on a deeper more frightening level, the living pulsing, excessive existence of what is other, its very molecular vibration. To be confronted with that is an anxiety inducing intrusion and an exhilarating, hallucinatory vision.

The works in The Vibrating Neighbor use collage fragments and images embedded in molecular structures and energetic abstract fields to create changes in perspective and scale. The concentric fields of vibrating color become stages for me to purpose peculiar relationships between those isolated elements. I’m less interested in the dream of togetherness and more interested in the unaccountable, relationships that may mean nothing and have no end. Animals crop up because their narratives seem to rub against the peopled ones. Imagine any familiar narrative, imagine an ant on the right shoe of one of it’s major players, now focus on the ant, voila the narrative’s familiarity is disturbed by it’s unknown, vibrating neighbor. I’m probably misusing that term. Neighbor seems to bleed into the idea of Other, but neighbor,  for me, has a theological history that I like, and it’s funnier. It’s a change in orientation that doesn’t allow me to think of my other’s as completely isolated, but as caught up in the same unaccountable set of relationships that ensnares all of us.

Happy New Year! It’s that time again that we fondly look back at this past year’s shows, and eagerly forward to what 2019 means for Ground Floor Gallery + Studios.

We began our year of 2018 with a group show, Self and Surroundings, featuring the studio artists of Ground Floor, that included Kim René, Amanda Joy Brown, Erin Murphy, Sibley Barlow, Meg McGregor, Georganna Greene, Bobby Becker, curated by Naomi Bartlett.

Our current studio artists at Ground Floor include: Amanda Brown, Georganna Greene, Bobby Becker, Janet Decker Yanez, Kim René, Matt Christy, Meg McGregor, Chris Harsch, Megan White and Kate Faulkner.

Ground Floor’s Matt Christy curated, My Own Worst Enemy, a show that featured paintings with a sense of individualism’s relationship with the weight of the world. Christy’s work was included along with Lindsey Campbell, Joe Christy, Kevin Dietz, and Chris Worth.

Another studio artist, Kim René, had a solo show titled Flow. She gave us beautifully atmospheric paintings that explored the fluidity of nature.

This past year has also been great for Ground Floor Gallery’s individual studio artists outside of our gallery! Founder/Director, Janet Decker Yanez, had a solo show, Evolution, with Galerie Tangerine. Amanda Brown was also featured at Galerie Tangerine in Ruche. Georganna Greene presented a solo show, Adagio, at Red Arrow Gallery, and Matt Christy was included in a group show at Track One (Matt also opens a show TONIGHT at The Red Arrow Gallery, The Vibrating Neighbor which runs through February 16th).

Catherine Haggarty joined us in curating our 6th Annual International Juried Exhibition, Rhythm & Rush. All submitting artists were featured in a book published by RD King and Extended Play. Haggarty selected Noemié Jennifer’s Onrush as “Best in Show,” awarding her a solo exhibition at Ground Floor in 2019.

Other artists included in the gallery show:

Noémie Jennifer: artwork

We are looking forward to Jennifer’s upcoming show this new year!

Keep in touch…2019 is also bringing us solo shows by Amanda Brown, and Bobby Becker, button making opportunities from The Button Project, and more. Cheers to 2019!

Untitled, Acrylic on Aluminum, 12″ x 12″

Next up, solo exhibition by studio artist, Kim René. Opening reception is Saturday, November 3rd, 6-9pm. Artist talk 7:15pm.

“Flow” is a collection of paintings created out of my desire to accentuate, even zone-in, on the fluidity of nature. When asked, “What inspires you?” I immediately want to shout out–  like from a mountain– “Nature, but of course!” I’m especially spellbound by the motion that happens within waterfalls, icebergs and molten lava. Not only am I moved by natural wonders of the world, the clouds and mist that surround us in our daily atmosphere deeply intrigue me as well. Capturing even the smallest characteristics of this personal obsession with nature’s liquids, drives me experientially and passionately. Experimenting with varied paint viscosity, mediums & canvas substrates helps recreate the expansive and emotional feelings that this aspect of nature provokes within me.  –Kim René

After receiving Best in Show Award in our 6th Annual Juried Show, “Rhythm and Rush” Nashville’s art scene will be anticipating Noémie Jennifer’s upcoming solo show in 2019. The piece selected that earned this award was her piece titled “Onrush.” The image, made from rag paper, mulberry paper, acrylic, and neon polyester thread could be seen as a cascading downpour, hair reaching out from the skin, or anything between and beyond.

A great word of entry to describe Noemie’s working is anticipation. Still images illustrate such a decisive moment, the viewer is left on the edge expecting a real world, real time transformation. These drawings stagnate the ephemeral.

Her use of thread and reorienting of meaty paper creates very haptic images, giving a tactile viewing experience. The viewer is allowed to slowly pull apart the way it was pieced together. Change, journey, and movement are the three words I would use to investigate her work. They describe so many different means of travel. You could see them as similar to the way one word weaves to another and on down the line to complete a thought and begin a new paragraph; how light from a star reaches our eye after a long trip from a dying explosion. One might even compare it to the politically charged migration of stressed people, or animals in a fight or flight mode, across stretches of foreign land, perhaps even cells building upon one another to create a sprouting plant.

Any artist working with micro/macro content must force the viewer to make profound connections between worlds. Jennifer takes this farther by captivating the element of movement and travel. With her work we not only see the visual connection between our world within eyesight and the world beyond, but learn of it’s intermingling, and how they each move with and depend on one another.

Noémie Jennifer: Onrush

Sincerest thanks to all the artists that participated in our 6th Annual Exhibition juried by Catherine Haggarty, “Rhythm and Rush.” Catherine had a record number of images, over 350, to consider for inclusion in this show. She chose 22 amazing artists whose art hangs harmoniously on the walls of Ground Floor Gallery– with the help of Art Handlers, Naomi Barlett, Georganna Greene and Erin Murphy– now through October 20th. Also big thanks to all that came out to the opening and “cast” their vote for Best in Show, so many great works did made it very difficult to choose!

Please help us Congratulate Noémie Jennifer, whose work “Onrush” represents the unnoticeable “shifting, flowing, eroding, firing” of the “mind, body, and natural landscape.” We look forward to seeing what she creates her solo exhibition Summer 2019!

image: WAVE, by Gyan Shrosbree 35″ X 25″, acrylic paint, glitter, plastic jewels, thread on canvas, 2017

Help us congratulate the 22 artists, our Juror, Catherine Haggarty, selected for our upcoming 6th Annual Juried Exhibition, Rhythm & Rush:

Ground Floor opens another show August 2018 curated by one of our studio mates Matt Christy, see below for more info and don’t forget TODAY, July 15th, is the last day to apply for our open call Rhythm and Rush, juried by Catherine Haggarty

My Own Worst Enemy will run July 25-Aug 18, 2018

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 4, 2018 6-9pm

My Own Worst Enemy, curated by Matt Christy, opens August 4th during the Art Crawl and will feature some of his work and emerging artists Lindsey Campbell, Joe Christy, Kevin Dietz, Chris Worth. The exhibition formally opens with a Reception with most of the artists in attendance August 4, 2018 6-9pm. By appointment otherwise.

My Own Worst Enemy brings together five artists who make paintings with a sense of history’s painful, heavy weight and of the self’s own thin, fragile place inside that discourse. These artists’ narratives and dramas suggest the extreme individualism of our times, along with all its problems and melancholies.—Matt Christy

Lindsey Campbell, Untitled, 16″x20’’, acrylic on canvas

Joe Christy, Bring Your Own, 4’x5’, acrylic on canvas

We are very excited to be partnering with local artist, RD King and Extended Play to create  an original art book that will document all the artists that submit to our 6th Annual Juried Exhibition–Rhythm and Rush. Deadline to submit is July 15th.

We will be presenting this book to our Juror, Catherine Haggarty, as a token of our gratitude and in honor of 2017 Juror Austin Thomas‘ words at the opening of Otherworldliness when she said she “could have created 20 shows” from all the amazing work that she reviewed. It is our hope that future shows, projects and relationships will be cultivated by this book.

Individual copies will be available for purchase through Extended Play, reserve your copy here.

Below is an interview to learn a bit more of David King’s process and inspiration by GfG Studio Artist, Sibley Barlow:

What got you started in publishing?

I’m interested in the personal, one-to-one exchange between artist and viewer. A book allows you to bypass the discomfort of experiencing art in a crowd of people at an art opening or a museum show. Reading an artist book puts you alone with the work, in a personal size that you can explore at your own pace.

I’ve been collecting artist books for a long time, and follow a number of small presses based out of other cities. I felt like a small artists book press was something that Nashville needed. Nashville has a strong history of galleries and independent artist spaces, but the exhibition can only be experienced during the run of the show. A book extends a body of work into a tangible object that can be viewed indefinitely.

Adapting artwork into a book format is a creative collaboration. Reading a book is an interactive experience for the viewer, so I like to include tactile, physical elements. When I was working with Jesse Butcher, I thought about how confrontational and subversive his photography feels. I decided to make a die-cut inset area in the pages of the last third of the book, leaving a hole, as though the book were a hollow Bible. Inside this hole I embedded a second, tiny handmade book of his more intimate line drawings.

Another artist, Jessica Wohl, is currently working with textiles. I designed her book to feel like a fabric swatch book that can be opened expansively, revealing many pages simultaneously as the views of her work zoom in and out.

What are you currently excited about in your art practice?

Book publishing hits an overlap between my interest in art and my interest in rebuilding machines. This comes out in my studio practice as well, I enjoy appropriating industrial machines for creative purposes. I’ve got an industrial plastic vacuum form machine that I’ve previously used to make crisp, white, large-scale work with found objects.

Currently I’m working on a series of original toys inspired by bootleg action figures, which will be encased in original handmade packaging, complete with accessories.

Are there any contemporary artists who are influences for you?

Richard Tuttle and John Gossage are both artists with extensive bodies of work who have also pushed the boundaries of what an artist’s book can be. I’ve also been collecting bootleg toys made by artists, such as ones by Mark Todd.

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.

Ground Floor artist Mandy Brown is currently featured alongside Katherine Wagner at Galerie Tangerine in their show Ruche. Katherine’s work was seen at Ground Floor Gallery in last year’s juried exhibition Otherwordliness. The two found an uncanny connection in their style and interest at that time. Both Wagner and Brown work with and are inspired by fabric and textile. They each use the material in albeit different ways, but each with the idea of memory involved. Brown’s work derives from the practice of recollection rather than direct observation, and Wagner uses memory in her work by revisiting the past. The parallels in their work make for interesting connections and a beautiful show. Ruche will be on view through July 6th at Galerie Tangerine, open weekdays 9-5pm.