Surroundings and the Self–curated by Naomi Bartlett

“Jazz MJQ”

Rods and Ribbons
Solo show featuring the work of Gil Given

Opened October 7th 6-9pm with artist reception

Ground Floor Gallery is pleased to present Rods and Ribbons, a solo exhibition awarded to Nashville Artist Gil Given after being selected as “Best in Show” by Austin Thomas, a NYC-based artist and community builder.

His most recent work, the ribbon paintings, leave the two-dimensional scope of the canvas and incorporate sculptural elements.

BARED curated by Sally Deskins

No. Inc. presents Art of the South 2017

Opens Saturday, June 3rd 6-9pm during Arts & Music at Wedgewood/Houston

“Ribbon Snake,” tea-stained cyanotype, 40 in X 30 in by Jaime Johnson

We are pleased to be hosting our region’s annual Art of the South, presented by NUMBER: Inc., a quarterly visual arts journal hailing from Memphis with coverage throughout AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, OK, TN, TX, SC, VA, or WV.

Join us Saturday, June 3rd, 6-9pm for a show that appears to be a cross-section of the contemporary rippling of art scenes across the southern region.

This show was curated by Mark Scala, Chief Curator at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Scala received an MA in in art history and MFA in painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Having spent the better part of his life painting, Mark is himself an artist. His interests and exhibitions have focused on representations of the body in contemporary art.

There are 28 artists displaying at Ground Floor Gallery + Studios and the L Ross Gallery in Memphis simultaneously.

Artists showing at GfG include:

Amelia Briggs, a painter who has recently been working on bulbous “inflatable” appearing surfaces. Amelia has definite interests in children’s imagery and expression.

Brent Dedas, works in mixed media and recalls the intensity of abstract expressionists. His work explores dichotomies such as science and art, or destruction and creation.

Donald Furst, a printmaker who depicts architectural scenes at night. Many of his compositions focus on interiors that include an opening door.

Jamie Johnson, a photographer currently teaching at Ole Miss. Using cyanotype photography, she explores female identity.

John Jackson, a figural painter drawing from the neo-expressionists. His paintings center around our current relationship with technology. The work represented in this show differs greatly from this and marks his way into abstraction.

Joseph Holsapple, an artist who makes still life paintings of domestic items. He fills his images with childhood objects and leaves bits of the image unfinished, evoking the nature of memory.

Katherine Wagner, a pattern-based painter who takes cues from the loud patterned fashion of the 80’s. Much of her work is based on personal childhood experiences with visual pattern.

Lauren Yandell, an artist who works in graphite, collage, and installation while finding a balance between nature and geometry. She marries realism with the raw quality of drawing.

Lester Merriweather, an artist and curator that works in collage. Lester focuses his attention on racial relationships, capitalism, consumerism, and the myriad of ways these things intersect.

Michael Nichols, creates unearthly portraits using buon fresco, air brush, and silverpoint. His curiosity in introducing old and ancient mediums to contemporary art is reflected in the ghostly images he creates.

Tori Tinsley, works in both sculpture and painting, creates surreal figures that morph into and out of each other.

Virgil (Cayse) Cheatham, a graduate of Yale University who currently lives in Atlanta, GA. He divides his time between creating erie landscaped-based paintings and working at the Zuckerman Museum.

If you can’t make it to the opening night of Art of the South, stop by during our regular gallery hours to check it out! We will be open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, 5-8pm.

Otherworldliness: 5th Annul Juried Show, curated by Austin Thomas.

March 27-April 28th

Please contact us for appointment or join us for opening night, April 1st, 6-9pm.

Frances Ashforth, Brianna Bass, Robert Fields, Gil Given, Carl Gombert, Kathia St. Hilaire, Amanda Joy Brown,Elysia Mann, Dusty Mitchell, Andrew O’Brien, Katherine Wagner, Mariel Zuchman.

“Otherworldliness” – Ground Floor Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee

March 27 – April 28, 2017, curated by Austin Thomas

Curatorial Statement

This exhibition presents examples of many typologies with an emphasis on artists from Nashville, other parts of Tennessee and elsewhere with photography, painting, printmaking and sculpture.  I have chosen painterly work with a focus on what I believe represents a feeling of otherworldliness.  There is a painterly vibe in the exhibition.  Some of the works are almost divine.  And the overall choices are not devoid of political content.

Whether painterly or politically-titled, as in Robert Fields’ piece (“Let it be an arms race.” — Donald Trump), all of the participating artists are present in the timeless inner territory that is of the artist where one attempts to build upon understanding and knowledge to expand meaning.

Frances Ashforth affirms our desire for an inner landscape as she teaches us through her monotypes about water and its importance in our lives.  Ashforth’s work, represented in this exhibition with a unique water-based monotype titled “Playa 7,” is bathed in blue, revealing to us the spirit of nature itself.  Nature is powerful and we are its student.

As students, we take notes and have homework. Mariel Zuchman’s watercolor and pastel artwork is a lesson in the transformative power of thinking and making visual thoughts on paper. Zuchman may make art to visually understand her thoughts.

Small ideas render deeper meaning in Carl Gombert’s kaleidoscopic rubber-stamped drawings.  His themes, motifs and symbols are set to repeat and his images reveal patterns with each color and stamp change.

Using one color and repurposing one material, black rubber, Dusty Mitchell’s piece cleverly hit the mark with our #MakeAmericaArtAgain call. His work serves as an awesome entrance into our “otherworld” as he has literally put out a welcome mat cut in the shape of the United States, but please don’t wipe your feet on your way in.

Gil Given’s three dimensional “sculptural painting” may challenge preconceived notions of traditional painting on canvas because his work of rainbow-colored acrylic paint on wood and canvas may propel itself off the wall, play a tune and dance out the room!  Gil Given is an artist marching to his own drummer, as they say.

More quiet is Elysia Mann’s hand-printed rope ladder “Anteroom” which seems to hang over a wall intended to keep someone in rather than carry someone out to safety.  Mann is also a poet and weaver unifying word and image together not unlike the centuries old Arabic practice of weaving the Koran into poems, called Iqtibas.

Kathia St. Hilaire’s relief print “Style,” weaves together a connectedness of personal history with communal memory into a powerful narrative reaffirming her rich present.

Andrew O’Brien’s untitled photograph from his curtain wall series reveals the appealing apparent transparency of glass.  In O’Brien’s photograph the outside world seems so far away.  His image is one of isolation.  But we are not concerned for in this exhibition, organized around the theme of otherworldliness, we have some exuberant painting ¾ represented in the works of Brianna Bass, Amanda Brown and Katherine Wagner.  This is a diversified collection of work demonstrating the mental labors of the discipline.

Brianna Bass’s painting “Hot Water” is so filled with different patterning that it feels like it is expanding and contracting at the same time.  The colors Bass uses revive and restore the transformative power of art itself.

A similar feeling is garnered from Katherine Wagner’s painting which begins with patterned fabric that the artist then paints into therefore accentuating its pattern or creating a whole new experience.

The artist and the observer (sometimes one and the same) encounter each other at Ground Floor Gallery.  Amanda Joy Brown, who has a studio near the exhibition space, has organized additional work in her studio leading us to the heart of this story in the central gallery where she is represented by her painting “Blueberry Snow” (a comforting title). The main story being; there is power in the individual voice of the artist where inner worlds strengthen the outer world and offer us not only hope but truth.

Thrown from the Storm, Jason Stout

Transit Nebula Disco, oil on canvas, 24 x 24, 2016

“Thrown from the Storm,” a solo exhibition, by Jason Stout, opens Nov. 5th from 7-10pm. Title taken from Arthur Rimbaud’s poem, The Drunken Boat. The line “thrown from the storm into a birdless sky,” travelled round and round the artist’s brain while creating this body of work. Read below to find out more about what inspired this vibrant, in color and content, series.

Artist’s Statement

My current body of work deals with the idea of the modern landscape, both formally and conceptually. In this series idyllic semi abstract representations of a natural environment exist. These landscapes are however altered by human’s existence, even though often no figure is visibly present. Oil derricks and boreholes accompany trees, bushes, and mountains, slowly taking over their position. In the foreground the top layer of earth is peeled back, exposing the polluted after effects of fracking and the water contamination that follows. An eerily placed path crawls through the composition as a metaphor for exploring a dangerous road ahead.

Cloud compositions deal with the idea of conflict and turbulence, both domestic and abroad. These clouds also double as nebulas, contracting and expanding energy around the idea of conflict. These works deal with notions of political strife coexisting with environmental concerns, and create compositions of smaller troubled environments happening in larger, yet equally troubled, ones. There are fragmented figurative elements playing in and outside of these clouds, as well as tools, weapons, and vices. These bits serve as visual metaphors that address specific narratives from our modern time.                                                                                                                             Jason Stout 2016

Artist Biography

Jason Stout was born in 1977. He received his BFA in studio art from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2001 and a MFA in Painting from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2004.

Stout’s work visually deals with elements of formal and figurative abstraction, while exploring such themes as power, history, and identity, especially through the guise of southern culture. His work exists in several private and public collections, including the University of West Georgia, Jacksonville State University, and the University of Tennessee at Martin.

During his career he has participated in several solo exhibitions and has been a part of many group exhibitions as well. Stout has won both scholarships and individual awards for his work. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee at Martin and is represented by REM gallery in San Antonio, Texas and Circuitous Succession Gallery in Memphis Tennessee. Stout was recently named TAEA Higher Education Art Educator of the Year for 2015-16 and Best of Show (featured artist) for the Art of the South 2016 exhibition.

Visit Artist’s Website for Resume and CV

GfG Artists’ (past and present) Exhibition, Aggregate, curated by Georganna Greene and After Crawl Open Studios 7:30-10:30 Oct 1st, 2016.

Anna Merrill, Bobby Becker, Carri Jobe, Cassie Harner, Devin Goebel, Dez Hough, Georganna Greene, Janet Decker Yanez,  Jovanni Luna,Mandy Brown, Meg McGregor, Mihail Tomescu, and Sibley Barlow.

#Artober #Aggregate #AM@WeHo

History Repeats Itself

“History Repeats Itself” is a new body of work by Chattanooga-based artist Katie Hargrave. “History Repeats Itself” explores the 2016 election season through a series of new pieces: “Listen to Wolf” is a video installation of Bernie and Hillary trying not to talk over each other at the primary debate; “Cease and Desist Karaoke” is a custom-karaoke of songs used by past and present candidates without the permission of the musicians. Do your best Trump impression of “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” alongside Palin’s “Barracuda;” and finally the titular piece “History Repeats Itself” are a series of take-away posters of redacted speeches of all 16 GOP candidates with the duplicate words removed. Part satire, part catharsis, join in exploring the absurdity of this political moment. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

What does it mean to take something apart, to put it back together, and to share what you learned in the process? I am interested in systems as broad as politics, history, our built environment, and our learning systems. The act of exploring, deconstructing, and decoding these systems is political, if subtly. We all have power; we all own this world. 

I make projects using a variety of forms — installations, publications, videos, and events — that encourage audiences to become participants in research and production as a way to explore their own experiences, their histories, their challenges. My work is responsive to environments, develops over time, and is co-created with participants as well as collaborators. Together, we can begin to realize that the construction of systems is made up of collective energy, and we might begin to ask: whose energy? 


BIO

Katie Hargrave (b. 1985 Chicago, resides Chattanooga, TN) is a professor of art at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. She received her MFA in Intermedia and Drawing from the University of Iowa, MA from Brandeis University, and BFA from the University of Illinois. Her work has been shown at DIY spaces, commercial galleries, non-profits, and festivals, including Proof Gallery in Boston; Gallerie Analix in Geneva, Switzerland; the Manifesta Biennial in Murcia, Spain; the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN, and the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, to name a few. She is a member of the collaborative groups “The Think Tank that has yet to be named” and “Like Riding a Bicycle.”

Katie Hargrave
http://katiehargrave.us
http://wearethethinktank.org

Universal Spaces

Solo Exhibition by Jovanni Luna

Opens in early June. Artist reception Saturday, June 18th 6-9p. Runs through July 16th.

Jovanni Luna was born in Wenatchee, Washington. He received his BFA from Washington State University (2013), and MFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (2015). He is currently living in Nashville, TN.

The use of donated house paint has evolved from an economical standpoint, to a method of recycling a material that might have been forgotten in the corners of basements and garages. It is about staying loyal to a material that has allowed me to manipulate it to the extent of my curiosity.

While still maintaining an emphasis on the construction and manipulation of paintskins, “Universal Spaces” is more than just a labor intensive, process installation, it’s a physical and emotional abstraction of remembrance. Composed of multiple sculptural paintings, each space recalls the state of mind and the surrounding environment one was in during a familiar situation. Capturing every detail one can in the moment, knowing well that once you move on, all that is left is an abstraction.             –Jovanni Luna 2016

No Shame in Wanting, 18” x 26” x 10”, 2016, erasers, nylon stockings, cosmetic wedges, no-slip rug mat, diapers, women’s slip, pillow stuffing, ear plugs, sewing pins, hair curlers, egg whiskers

The Touch Room

A gallery is so often a “hands off” space, but for Danielle McCleave’s “The Touch Room,” people are encouraged to interact with the artwork and each other. The culture in the U.S. in particular isn’t used to physical contact, and “The Touch Room” is built to counteract the sterility of social interaction we experience in the USA and in a gallery.

See what Danielle has to say:

“Above all, we must cherish the relationship between one human to another, and specifically the instances of physical touch. Our culture has become so cripplingly sterile and so cautious that we emphatically discourage touching each other, and encourage distancing ourselves from one another.

Humans need each other and physical interaction to survive not only mentally, but also physically. Studies have shown that a simple touch from one human to another releases endorphins and lowers blood pressure.

While I was abroad in Europe, I noticed how different their culture is from ours, and how distant Americans are from each other. The cultures I encountered encouraged touch; habitually, everyone is greeted with a kiss, and people even stand closer to each other in public places. The “personal space bubble” that America puts so much emphasis on is not as present in their culture, and they greatly benefit from this.

That’s why I wanted to create a space that would allow a sense of comfort to happen within the interactions with strangers. With “The Touch Room,” I’m wanting to pop that “bubble” by encouraging human-to-human touch, and the sensation of physical contact to promote comfort in relationships with people.

I was born in Orlando Florida, and then moved on to Dallas, Texas before coming to Nashville to study art. I have always been fascinated with the tendencies of humans and the similarities and differences between cultures. Growing up in such different, major metropolitan cities allowed me to experience both proclivities–to touch and avoid touch–and I became comfortable with strangers and large amounts of people at a young age. I continue learning about the world and the people we all share it with through my participatory artwork and projects.”

When was the last time you touched another human being? Come see and touch at Ground Floor Gallery + Studios for the opening reception of “The Touch Room” on April 15th from 6-9PM.

See below for a conversation between Sibley Barlow, GfG’s writer-in -residence, and Dani on her upcoming show.

Danielle McCleave is a young artist wrapping up her final moments with Belmont College of Visual Arts. Her current installation work explores themes of personal space, intimacy, and human interaction. In her upcoming show, viewers will no longer be viewers, but agents of an event. Danielle is setting up a space for us to engage with one another in a way that reaches beyond our everyday interaction. Below is a slightly condensed interview with the artist discussing her thesis exhibition at Ground Floor Gallery.

S: Well first of all, let’s hear about your piece. Can you explain how the idea originated?

D: My piece is basically a commentary on touch, and the personal space bubble of humans in our society. About two semesters ago I studied abroad in Italy, the fall semester of my junior year. I just really realized how small their personal space bubble is there, compared to ours here in America – which is really interesting to me. I was walking down the streets, and first of all, the sidewalks are really small there anyway, everything is small there, it’s just a tiny place. And you’re on this small sidewalk and people are just passing by you like “School’s out, school’s out!” and they bump you and touch you and they greet you with a kiss. And there’s not really a concept of a line, but it doesn’t bother anyone. Everyone kind of just touches each other and they will talk to you up close; that is their space. It’s just a different in comparison to America. We’re very distant to the point of being sterile, and I think that is hindering us a little bit especially in childcare. I nanny a lot, and so that’s where a lot of my ideas come from. Kids in America, like in a kindergarten class, if a one of them falls over I can’t kiss his boo boo because it’s “gross.” But of course, I mean, it’s a child. But the precautions and the ideas have been perverted in our society. At a baseline it’s become a little too sterile, in my opinion. I at least wanted people to realize how different it is from other places in the world. So with my piece I want to, kind of, break that bubble, in a fun and interactive way. And I like my work to be very open, I never want it to feel cut off. For example, one of the things I absolutely love is touching art. I like my art to be touched, even if at some point in the future it will physically destroy my art I think it would have been for the benefit, because at least it was able to be interacted with.

S: Did this idea hit you while in Italy experiencing that?

D: No. I just woke up one morning, like 6 in the morning and sketched this out in my sketchbook, went back to sleep, and never thought about it again until I was told that I needed to get a start on this thesis. So I just went back and worked off of that. My very first project was to have a very dark room that would have finger-like extensions or little things that would touch you and it could give the sensation of gently being touched or caressed. That evolved into this piece with the hanging balls because I wanted each finger or extension to light up as if it were your neurons lighting up when you touched them, you know, and so that’s what that turned into. I made this sort of hallway and so you can see people going through it, walking through it, but also be a part of it in the same way. The other part is a wall with thermochromatic paint so you can see your handprint, your touch on a surface, to make it sort of physical – that which normally can’t be seen. The way you touch someone and what that feels like. As if every time you touched someone, it left a handprint on their body. So I made a wall and two platforms on the ground so if you were to take off your shoes and walk on it you could see your footprints. The fourth piece is basically a giant touch lamp and it’s sort of a closet/hallway, but it’s open, and metal on all four sides. Viewers will walk inside of it but everytime you touch a side, the light will go on and off, so you can squeeze by a bunch of people in a crowd and the light will on and off.

S: And it’s going to force people to also touch each other?

D: Yes, that’s the goal. I also have another piece that is a performance piece which I am actually shooting today, and that will just show basically the same concept of visualizing our touch on people around us – using color. Each person will have a particular color and when you touch someone they get a little bit of that color, you know? That will be projected on the wall.

S: Well I’m pretty excited to see this become a reality.

D: It’s exciting but terrifying, like anything else in art. I’ve been working on this for over a year now, so we’ll see.

S: So around this time last year you started on it?

D: Yeah, I’d say so. Maybe a little earlier. I’ve been forming this piece and trying to kind bring it to life. I always feel a kinship to God in art, in that we are able to create the way God has created so we get that same experience. Artists have that same job that God fulfills. (Laughs) It is true though. It is that gift to create and make things that are brand new which is cool you know?

S: Do you find that there is spirituality in your work? Not necessarily religion but that essence of a bigger presence?

D: Yeah, I try to definitely try to have some sort of spirituality. I have a sense of at least some form of spirituality in there, partially because I do identify as Christian. I usually try to get a lot of my motivation from the religious environment. I’m a little bit of a liberal christian so I turn to nature often. I really listen to the environment and everything that surrounds me. I feel like just that spirit, listening to the world happening around us and trying to wake people up to it and draw their attention to it is what comes out in my art. At least what I want to bring out. Opening eyes to the every day of what’s around us.

S: What was your childhood experience with art like? When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

D: I was always doodling and painting. But my dad is an engineer, my mom is a teacher. My mom was always very open to it and encouraged it in me. My dad as well, but he took it more to the engineering direction. I just knew I always liked painting but I never thought of it as a career until maybe high school when I took architecture. That was more because I was thinking of the financial security of it. But when I took the class I realized how much I hate sitting there drawing straight lines. It just got really boring. My senior year I ended up winning some drawing competitions, and that encouraged me. But it was something I just had to figure out that I wanted over time and just sort of forget everything else, dive in, and make it happen.

S: Is there a part of you that is still interested in architecture? You’re pretty focused on installation work, and this piece in particular is pretty architectural.

D: No, well maybe.

S: Because you are obviously focused on people, but does the space they inhabit have significance as well?

D: I find fascination in architecture and the beauty of it. But I don’t think I would ever want to be the person behind it, designing it. I do love it on a small scale, with the installation work. I don’t have set media for my art, I just start with an idea, and then I need a way to explain it. So I pick media that suits it from that point. Sometimes it’s painting, sometimes it’s photography, sometimes it’s an installation. My concentration is on the idea. Which I also find very freeing, I don’t have to be stuck behind the stigma of, say, a photographer. That works for some people, but I’m just going to do it all, and everyone will have to be okay with it.

S: So you’re from Orlando, and you lived there for quite a while I’m assuming?

D: I lived there for the first part of my life, and then I moved to Dallas TX. Always lived in the city, always been around people. Nashville is the smallest city I’ve ever lived in. I work downtown, I love the energy of the city and being around a crowd but at the same time open space and nature. Which is interesting because that’s not what I was brought up in.

S: So what sort of influence do you think that has had on your art – being around that community?

D: I think it does have a lot to do with it. Being around that many people of different cultures and the realities of that. I never knew a stranger growing up with my mom, because that’s just how she is, everyone on the street is a friend. We would pick up random people off the street often and give them rides. I would be a two year old in the car seat next to them saying hello. You talk to everyone, everyone is family. Of course be safe, be cautious, but never assume a person is a stranger to you. I try to show that in my art or at least use it.

S: Use it as a way to connect people and get them back to that point?

D: Yeah definitely. In cities it can be very isolating and very lonely yet at the same time you are surrounded by so many people. But it doesn’t have to be that way, which is interesting. So I try to go the opposite direction, you can either embrace everyone and deal with all that energy, or let yourself be isolated. And I obviously do need that space at times to be by myself, but I get energy from people.

S: So simultaneously being alone while being amongst everyone else – that is a very interesting thing to think about. It’s very human, I think everyone finds comfort in that dynamic.

D: Yeah, it’s a really great paradox.

S: What are you going to do after this? As far as your show goes, do you feel like this will be resolved by the time you’re done with it, or is there more to explore?

D: As of now I feel it’s resolved. Partly because I’ve been working on it for a year now and it’s time to leave it alone. It is also an “assignment” as well so part of me, the rebel in me, wants to reject it for that reason. I do want to explore it more and figure out how to complete it in the way I originally visualized it. Like with any art piece, I go through so many modifications, so many trials and errors, nothing is how it was when I first thought of it. And so it is also wonderful, going through that process. Finding those issues and resolving them, and figuring out that it’s not actually resolved, redoing it, going back over everything, completely erasing it, crying (Laughs). So that process is so important, and I think it’s a really important part of my work to talk about. There are so many pieces out there in the world that have been through so much trauma in order to get out into the world, and I love that. So I think I can still go deeper into it, but not right off. I may do something else for a little while and come back to the idea at a different time, reassess, see if I even still believe in it.

Join us in celebration of studio artist

Amanda Joy Brown’s solo exhibition

Resurface

February 6th 6-9pm

Studio shot by Leticia Bajuyo

Sketch of LOST 618 by Jason s. Brown

In cooperation, Leticia Bajuyo and Jason S. Brown will create new work at Ground Floor from the mainstream cycle of capitalist consumerism to hybrids of  landscapes that are impacted and altered by industrial processes. Together their work will combine bright industrial colors with raw earth materials. Installing the work will be a response to the space at GfG, while simultaneously advancing a shared dialogue about suburban development, land use and consumerism.

Mark

Turing Test, detail, Anders Johnson

Mark is an exhibit of eleven works by nine local and national artists, is like taking a road trip through the physical and psychological landscape of the United States. A branded pig, the American flag, audio books, paintings and photographs experienced along the way display a deep concern for the vulnerable.

During the opening, 6-9pm, Saturday Nov. 7th, Mandy Cano Villalobos meditatively hand-grinds a red brick into dust, the pile of which she leaves for future visitors. The pig is also hers. Marked with designs appropriated from the Cuzco school, which for purposes of religious conversion in the 16th century, taught indigenous people along the Andes European painting techniques, the pig represents both the sacred and the filthy. 

Physical and emotional degradation marks Jenny Day’s haunting landscape of empty, dark interstate bridges both cut and supported by thick bands of ochre. Red, rather than green serves as the ground. Day’s color choice shares a palette both with that of the Cuzco school and with fellow Mark artist John Bruno. The three stacked yellow circles in his painting, Disheartening Loss Means War, reads like a cautionary traffic light, warning of potential danger ahead. A piece by photographer and experimental psychologist David Pittenger continues the theme. In Reno Two PM, thick shadows playing across a sea of empty apartment balconies form a complex grid and turn the building into a cage.

Based on a road trip across America, the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac is considered a defining work of the postwar generation. Katie Hargrave made five customized versions by recording only the underlined sections she found in various copies of the book. Anders Johnson’s painting adds to the driving experience. Housed in a factory, a police cruiser and a wrecked car sit just past the dashboard of an empty automobile. 

Flags comprise a quarter of the show-more perhaps if you read the red and white lines in Bruno’s painting as a political symbol. Laura McAdams bowling ball anchoring a flag balloon symbolizes both holding up and holding back progress. Katie Hargrave joined — or divided — an American and Mexican flag with the snaking line of the Rio Grande. She took the photo in Texas. A flag also juts out over the balcony and points to a clock in a black and white photograph by Jesse Kilmon.

Should one need a respite at any point, Beth Reitmeyer invites participants to sit and snack! Reitmeyer, best known in Nashville for her interactive work and thoughtful presence in the arts scene, thankfully creates a soft space in the form of rock shaped pillows. She hopes her work will provide an area not only for contemplation, but also for conversation. Perhaps even action.

Curatorial statement by Adrienne Outlaw

 

A soft sculpture exhibit – Opens October 3rd 2015

“Touched” is an upcoming exhibit that features soft sculpture, a genre that straddles the fine contemporary art and textile craft divide.

Brought together by Tennessee artist Shana Kohnstamm, thirteen emerging and mid-career artists will showcase their works at Ground Floor Gallery + Studios in Nashville, TN throughout October 2015.

The 2015 invited artists are Morwenna Catt, Andrea Graham, Sonya Yong James, Shana Kohnstamm, Kit Lane, Moxie Lieberman, Kirsten Lund, Kyoko Matsuyama, Stephanie Metz, Jennifer Moss, Astrid Polman, Leisa Rich, and Zoe Williams. 
They come from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and The Netherlands.

 Felting demonstrations and workshops will be held in conjunction with the exhibit, which coincides with Tennessee Craft Week, American Craft Weekand Artober Nashville.

Kyoko Matsuyama

Zoë Williams

Leisa Rich

Stephanie Metz

The artists say…

 

• 

  In my current work, ambiguous sculptures express the paradox of living organisms: strength and fragility, persistence and surrender, liberation and containment.

  – Andrea Graham

More Featured Artists

Moxie Lieberman

Apr 17, 2015 | No Comments

Statement: I make sculptures out of wool and hard feelings. Being a sentient creature is mysterious and terrifying, hilarious and gross, awkward and extremely temporary. I am fascinated by what it’s like to be a person; who we think we are, how we got here, and what we can’t know about each other. Needle or […]

Read More

Astrid Polman

Mar 18, 2015 | No Comments

Statement: Central to my work is human with his emotions, his connections with himself and nature. I’m fascinated by the interconnectedness of form and contents, of inside and out. How do we view from the outside what lives inside… How does vulnerability and strength become visible? This is what I am trying to research, find […]

Read More

Morwenna Catt

Mar 16, 2015 | No Comments

Bio: Morwenna Catt has a degree in Art & Design and graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University. Her current practice includes textiles, painting, drawing, light boxes, installation and sculpture. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally; notably at The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Galerija Skuc […]

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Sonya Yong James

Mar 16, 2015 | No Comments

Statement: I see fiber as a basic common thread throughout the organic world. This fiber sculptural work centers on the creative act as personal obsession. This work is the beginning of an exploration of the idea of repetition and ritual experienced through the process of making. A prescribed order of assembling, manipulating, and presenting the […]

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More about Ground Floor Gallery & Studios in Nashville, TN

Ground Floor Gallery is committed to providing exhibitions with depth and relevance in multiple disciplines for a diverse audience.

Ground Floor Gallery presents artists with the opportunity to exhibit their work in a collective artist community. We increase their exposure to art professionals and connect them with potential buyers. The gallery is currently accepting proposals for individual and group shows. We also have juried exhibitions and host shows curated by artists that occupy the studios. During juried group exhibitions artists set their prices and keep 70% of their sales. This allows artists to take risks that are not generally supported by commercial galleries.

Ground Floor Gallery doesn’t represent individual artists. We support our studio artists, as well as exhibiting artists, by providing creative space, professional exposure and exhibition experience.

Stay Connected:

Ground Floor Gallery’s Studio Artist, Dez has her solo exhibition:

Opens August 1st

Artist’s reception from 6-10pm

Runs thru the 29th

Rotting Piñata

by Desiré Hough 

A festive way to show the grim side; Death by Birthday

False hopes and expectations

Play with your emotions

Rev up your anticipation

Forced fun

Let downs

Holidays

Desire’ Hough’s solo installation, Rotting Piñata, is a birthday party that was eagerly planned but never occurred for unspoken reasons, leaving the viewer with underlying notions of death. The piñata was never hit yet is falling apart, cake never cut but not at all appetizing, wrinkly balloons at your feet, and gifts left unopened create a subtly haunting scene. The party becomes a memorial site that is left untouched in mourning.

photo of Piñata Skin, 2015, mixed media

Bricolage

A gallery presentation of Ground Floor Artists and an open studios tour.

Hop, skip or saunter by EARLY Saturday, September 5th from 4-6pm, during the AM@WeHo and DT art crawls. Light refreshments and engaging conversations with local artists provided.

 

 

 

Taking Things Apart

David Wilburn

July 11th-27th

 

Looping, Endless, 2015 — acrylic, embroidery, wool blanket on muslin, 25×23 inches

 

 

 

David Willburn’s art practice combines a history of drawing and craft (fibers) with a love of domestic history and ritual. Taking Things Apart re-presents objects from his own home in a series of highly abstracted mixed media works on fabric. These hybrid media works–involving craft, painting, and drawing–are evidence of Willburn’s interest in employing craft media as a way of examining everyday things while reconsidering social, gender, and cultural convention.

 

Born in Fort Stockton, Texas, David Willburn lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas. He earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, VT). His work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues including Dallas Contemporary (Dallas, Texas), Helmuth Projects (San Diego, CA), University of Art and Design (Helsinki, Finland) Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Union Gallery at University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI) and Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, Oregon).

 

www.davidwillburn.com

SYSTEMS POLITICS by Morgan Higby-Flowers

June 6th, 7-10. Live performance on Saturday night by Morgan at 9:30pm with special appearance by Patrick DeGuira. Show will run thru June 30th and will consist of multi-media video and audio installations of landscaped based spectrums of nature and analog signal as material.

 

Dispatches from the Borderlands

April 4th, 6-9pm

Barbara Schreiber

Jeremy Entwistle

curated by Evelyn Walker

 

 

The American landscape is thoroughly occupied. We don’t trust the spaces in between. We prefer to fill space up with things and with thoughts; we are equipped to push the empty spaces further beyond, fictionalizing and re-contextualizing space until we can call it The Frontier.

Road, bridge, gate: these are punctuations which organize the borderland. They tether us safely to a world that is contextualized. These structures connote a sense of motion and a division. They are human gestures that mark a contrast between outward and inward, here and there. But maybe, in addition to their pragmatism and utility, these structures serve as symbols, like letters or words, which estrange the empty space. Maybe their use is in fact responsible for our perception of the space as “empty”, when in truth such a word hardly applies.  

 Curated as a conversation between checkpoints, artists Jeremy Entwistle and Barbara Schreiber work in contrasting ways with ideas of space and sprawl. They alternately leave room for the vastness and the tension between us and the unknown; or they apply close attention to the signs and symptoms of our discomfort, such as an infrastructure deficit about which we are in denial.

Evelyn Walker

Come one, come all: tall, short, young, old…or at least those willing to reach up high or crouch down low, we are helping Andee Rudloff create a mural!

Doors open Saturday March 7th at 5pm during the March Art Crawl. Painting will go until 8pm. Final touches by Andee will be done by 8:30 and completed mural will be up for purchase!

Tickets are $5 each. This provides the paint, snacks and beverages plus a 10% discount on all gallery art purchases. Buy tickets in advance or at the door. Cash, credit cards and local checks will be accepted. Groups are welcome. Children under 6 are free but must be accompanied by paying adult. 

 No cost to come between 8-9:30pm.

Mural Painting with Andee Rudloff. It’s too cold to do a mural outside so let’s help her complete one indoors at Ground Floor Gallery.

Andrea D. Rudloff (Andee) is a professional artist, consultant and educator. She served as the Education and Visual Art Director, successfully designing and launching all education, engagement and visual art programming for the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center (SKyPAC) in Bowling Green, KY. In 2013, the Kentucky Art Education Association named Rudloff Museum Educator of the Year. She is on the board of trustees for the Tanne Foundation based in New Hampshire, which provides support to individual artists. Rudloff is part of the planning committee curating Bowling Green, KY’s annual Idea Festival. She served as the community relations manager, educator and curator at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, TN. Rudloff was the curator of the Nashville International Airport’s Arts at the Airport Foundation designing new spaces and organizing exhibitions and performances during a multi-million dollar renovation. She has served as the curator for Curb Records’ Johnny Cash Collection, facilitator of the At Home Project with Judy Chicago, as well numerous other curatorial and teaching positions. Other involvement in the arts includes being appointed by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to serve on Kentucky Arts Council Board in 2011 and reappointed in 2014 for a three year term. She was awarded Best Community Art Energizer by the Nashville Scene. She has served as a consultant on countless public art and community art projects including the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Western Kentucky University Women’s Studies Mural Projects. Andee has been a featured community art presenter at the National Art Education Association annual conference, TeachMeet conferences, Ambition Fest and as well as several public and private schools. She received the 2010 ADAM Award for Outstanding Achievement and Support for Kids on the Block in Middle Tennessee. Andee has more than 20 years of experience as an art administrator, curator and professional artist including murals and exhibitions in Bowling Green, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., New York, N.Y., Taipei, Taiwan, and other national and international exchanges.

The Artist’s Alphabet  opens 5:30-8p, Thursday, December 18th with an artists’ reception and runs through January 30th

David Willburn

KJ Schumacher

Charmaine Ortiz

Briena Harmening

Desire Hough

Kelly Jones

Brittany Vega

Jen Pappas

Jeremy Jones

“I have an alphabet of tricks, an alphabet of colors,” she says. “Every artist has that, and with every body of work I’m trying to enrich it with new possibilities.” ­Charlene Von Heyl

In this juried exhibition I chose works from artists who seem to be following their their own practice, with their own rules or “alphabet”, to quote painter Charlene Von Heyl. I generally sought multiple works per artist whose, creating a context (even if a small one) for the artist’s works.

In terms of process, several artists use cutting or sewing (incised marks on a photograph, exacto knife for masking tape, needles for thread) on a fairly conventional support (canvas, paper). But results are fresh and seemingly effects of an artist getting to know one’s own alphabet; abstract shapes taking on silhouette narratives (David Willburn), a 4×6 photograph (yeah, those real ones that we used to print) loaded with all it’s conventions of time and space masked with layers of colorful Martha Stewart­like tape (KJ Schumacher) and thin scratchy barely­visible lines recalling mapping and geography incised on printed photographs of an azure sky (Kelly Jones).

The juried show format at Ground Floor Gallery stands for such an important milestone in a working artists’ professional life, and I loved seeing the work. Thanks to everyone who submitted and for their commitment to their practice.

Jodi Hays November 2014

Jodi is a Nashville-based artist and curator whose work is influenced by inhabited space, specifically landscape and architecture and their potential metaphors to the painted surface. She has exhibited her work at galleries and museums across the United States and Germany including at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Brooks Museum of Art and the Boston Center for the Arts. Her work is documented in six exhibition catalogues, and has been positively reviewed in publications such as Number and Sharon Butler’s Two Coats of Paint. A recipient of several grants, awards, and fellowships including the Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Hays holds a BFA from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Art. Hays’ solo exhibition “Painting as Archival Spelunking” will be on view at the Tennessee Arts Commission, November 2014. Her work can be found in important public and private collections including J. Crew Company, the Tennessee State Museum, and the Arkansas Art Center.

impulse: playing house as a blank artist

an audio/musical/visual installation addressing character development and anonymity.

by Evelyn Walker, Ziona Riley and Austin Hoke

The group wishes to react to the politicized decorum surrounding the act of art-making. Like other basic urges, art has been estranged from the human soul and intellectualized into secrecy. It is too often kept for the rich or the educated. It is too often encrusted with the capitalistic rhetoric of “productivity”, “creativity”, “usefulness”, “goodness”.

The group will collectively step into the identity of an artist with a well-established and successful art practice. The group hopes to gesture towards the viewer/listener and also the “artists” as participants in the structure of ideas that shapes the arts culture, and also to suggest freedom from that structure.

A.I.R. ReFreshed–a traveling exhibition

“The thought of curating a 32 artist show was daunting: It combined both the national and the New York artists in a group show for the first time, and the only elements holding it together was the uniformity in framed size and a loose theme, a litmus test to see what was currently driving the work we were making,” said Janet Decker Yanez, the curator of the show and owner of Ground Floor Gallery in Nashville. “But once I had the images before me to choose from, the show took shape effortlessly. The common bond we have as women and artists of the A.I.R. Gallery translates into a show rich with feelings and contradictions and underscores how our cultural, generational and gender-style differences can approach the term ReFreshed.”

A.I.R. ReFreshed schedule:

Ground Floor Gallery
September 18, 2014, 5-8pm opening reception; show runs through October 17                    942 Fourth Ave. South, Nashville, TN 37210

Curated by Janet Decker Yanez, A.I.R. national artist

ADORE
Opening November 6, 2014
1065 Dolores St., San Francisco, CA 94110-2924
Curated by Owner/Director Maya Koenig and Paula Everitt, A.I.R. national artist

The Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies
Opening January 2015
Dickinson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Curated by Dana Lichtstrahl, director of the center, and Paula Everitt, A.I.R. national artist

New York and National Artists: Laura Crosby (Minneapolis, MN), Dani Dodge (Los Angeles, CA), Daria Dorosh (New York, NY), Yvette Drury Dubinsky (New York, NY), Paula Everitt (Newtown, PA), Melissa Furness (Denver, CO), Alisa Henriquez (East Lansing, MI), Maxine Henryson (New York, NY), Mary-Ann Kokoska (Fort Collins, CO), Nancy Macko (Upland, CA), Carolyn Martin (New York, NY), Louise McCagg (New York, NY), Catherine Mosley (New York, NY), Melissa Murray (New York, NY), Sylvia Netzer (New York, NY), Ann Pachner (New York, NY), Meghan Quinn (Los Angeles, CA), Sally Resnik Rockriver (Chapel Hill, NC), Ann Schaumburger (New York, NY), Kathleen Schneider (New York, NY), Barabara Seigel (New York, NY), Julia Kim Smith (Baltimore, MD), Patty Smith (Philadelphia, PA), Joan Snitzer (New York, NY), Erica Stoller (New York, NY), Nancy Storrow (New York, NY), Liz Surbeck Biddle (New York, NY), Jane Swavely (New York, NY), Gladys Tietz Mercer (Kappa, IL), Erin Wiersma (Manhattan, KS), Joo Yeon Woo (Boulder, CO), Janet Decker Yanez (Nashville, TN).

A.I.R. Gallery is located at 111 Front Street, #228 in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Gallery hours: Wed. -Sun., 11am to 6pm.

For more information please contact the Director, JoAnne McFarland at 212-255-6651 or info@airgallery.org

A.I.R. Gallery – Celebrating over 40 years of advocating for women in the visual arts.

Rock, Paper, Plastic

by Heidi Martin Kuster

 My work extends from an interest in time’s passage as found in geological material.

In this exhibition I have borrowed the sing song phrasing of a familiar childhood game to step back, be present and look forward.

ROCK – Examining a rock, it’s morphing form, and all it’s surface marks is a way to look into the past. A pebble in my hand holds the memory of a hike, a conversation with my son, a breathtaking, time stopping vista. It records hard evidence of our earth’s evolution from millions of years ago.

PAPER – Paper is where I record life in the present. It is the current process, the response to memory and commitment to the ephemeral moment. It will degrade and pass. In the scheme of earth’s historic changes it will be an instant, quickly disappearing into the fertile compost of time.

PLASTIC – Plastic bags represent the ambiguity of the future. I stuff them under my car seat, in my purse, thinking what they will become. They are procrastination in it’s purest form. Will I use them again and again, will I pretend they are recyclable, or will I create something from them? They become, for me, the perfect admission of how my choices will inevitably impact the rock I live on for my children and their future.

Utopia: Can it Stay Dream? Fantastic show, artists and photography to remember it by, Summer 2014!

Utopia: Can it Stay Dream?

Exhibition by Culture Laboratory Collective

Opens July 5th and runs thru July 25th.

Utopia (or the less common spelling “Eutopia”) implies a unified system nearing perfection, a social design operating efficiently and fairly. Housed within the language of Utopia/Eutopia are the opposed meanings “good place” and “no place,” a contradictory warning admonishing the nobility of Utopian pursuits.

Often envisioned as an ideal place, a Utopia must be constructed to encompass all aspects of contemporary life. However, elitist ideas are commonly employed in Utopian design, signaling notions of intellectual escapism and pre-suppositions that abstract humanity. Currently, community based systems are offering undirected Utopias, circumventing imposed institutions by offering a less perfect, infinitely fluid, and more immediate gratification; a mass-backed redefinition of “good.” Yet, there remains a dream of the perfect place or person, a possible nostalgic future designed outside of cynicism with intellectual optimism.

“The only barrier to human development is ignorance, and this is not insurmountable.”      ~ Robert H. Goddard, The Ultimate Migration, 1918

The digitally-communal, geographically disconnected, band of artists called Culture Laboratory Collective offer reflections on Utopia; a presentation of aesthetically designed trials with a shared aim to edify humanity and/or question social norms.

The international collective, started in 2009, includes members Piotr Chizinski (New York City, NY), Sarah Haven (Seattle, WA), Brian R. Jobe (Knoxville, TN), Shreedpad Joglekar (Manhattan, KS), Ryder Richards (Dallas, TX), Sue Anne Rische (Dallas, TX), Ian F. Thomas (Slippery Rock, PA), Dryden Wells (Jingdezhen, China), and Jonathan Whitfill (Lubbock, TX). They have exhibited more than a dozen times in areas as diverse as China, New York, and Texas.

Jake Weigel‘s

Meet of the Matter

Artist Statement

The exploration of the space where the physical and immaterial elements of reality meet is paramount to my art. This threshold is a delicate construction of dualities and dynamic elements, impossible to fully define or comprehend. My art comes from a complex development of research and experiences towards this philosophy.

As daunting of a task this investigation is, an intuitive and conceptual exploration of underlying structures and cause-effect relationships of the material world is where the creative process begins. Areas of study include architecture, art theory, ecology, anthropology, mathematics, Eastern philosophy, quantum physics and personal experiences. These various subjects appear to share a common thread throughout, though an essence at best, with the synthesis existing in a space that is simultaneously physical, abstract and metaphorical. The resulting art acting as a physical manifestation of a personal narrative from this investigation.

For The Meet of the Matter, the work comes from two primary sources; the writings of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard and quantum physics. Whereas the bridging of the micro and macro scale of cosmic laws rely on abstract scientific research, Bachelard’s observations of spaces that house intimate memories speak to the observable foundation of human condition. Bachelard realized this as a philosopher of the scientific process before focusing on the art of poetry later in his career. Nevertheless, the discovery of the new mathematics, spatial dimensions, dark matter and sounds of interstellar space from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft add an increasingly complex and provocative layer into the structure and origins of the universe, exposing even more of the vast unknown.

Bio

Jake Weigel is an artist and currently Exhibitions Coordinator and Lecturer at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi. Originally from Wisconsin, he received his BFA in Studio Art from the University of Minnesota and MFA in Sculpture from the University of Mississippi.

Weigel has exhibited widely in the United States and has received awards for his art and research, which includes a broad range of subjects from art history and anthropology to quantum physics. He has written reviews for Number, a quarterly arts journal in Memphis, Temporary Art Review based in St. Louis (temporaryartreview.com), and Mississippi Modern out of Jackson, Mississippi (ms-modern.com).

March 1-April 25th

Open…

Works by Heidi Martin Kuster, Mandy Brown, Anne Daigh and Janet Decker Yanez

 

An eclectic mix of new work by studio artists Heidi Martin Kuster, Mandy Brown, Anne Daigh and Janet Decker Yanez all come together this month in “Open…” at Ground Floor Gallery + Studios. The exposition moves easily between texture, form, and colorful word play. Kuster continues with her examination of the surface, shape, and evolution of rocks in subtle abstract oil paintings. Brown explores acrylic paint skin to create colorful small scale compositions full of contemporary conversation.

Daigh pieces torn maps and newsprint together into whimsical plant and animal collages. Yanez cleverly invites the viewer to consider the changing form of female breasts in her installation Chest Bored.  Cracks, folds, tears and wrinkles co-exist in a tactile banter between four artists all considering space, time, and personal history through recycled media.      Written by Heidi Martin Kuster

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December 7-Janurary 17th

Open Access:

Past, Future or Present

When all else fails where do you turn for comfort? The past to remember the good times, the future for hope and inspiration, or the present to live “in the moment.”

Visit Ground Floor Gallery + Studios, December 7th, from 12-8pm during AM@WeHo to explore all of these options. See the past and present works of Amanda Brown, Heidi Martin Kuster and Janet Decker Yanez as they open their studios for mini-retrospectives and participant in the futuristic photo booth being created by Erica Ciccarone and Tony Youngblood.

 

What is new is always nostalgic. Nothing is uncharted. We create the charts from our tracks–the stories we tell, the pictures we take, the odd things we leave behind. Some say that the digital age threatens this, that it alienates us from ourselves, from others. That it encourages the ego and threatens the artist within. But more and more we see it as a way to record, not to isolate but to connect. We join the infinite cannon of the regular human, the unpublished and unloved. We snap pictures to say, “This is who I am in this moment, and I may never be the same again. Acknowledge my vulnerability.” We update statuses, send emails, tweet, tumble, blog, comment, create profiles to persuade and to captivate. Here. I. Am. In this moment, and I want you all to see.

 

Open Access.  By Erica Ciccarone and Tony Youngblood.

 

 

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Conditionally Human

November 2-29th

Opens Saturday November 2nd 6-9p during Arts & Music @

Wedgewood/Houston

Featuring the work of:

Richard Brouillet, Chris Burks, Aletha Carr, Julie Cowan, Liz Heller, Kelly Hider, Ryan Hoevenaar, Laney Humphrey, Nathan Madrid, Elysia Mann, Miriam Norris Omura, Mary Robinson, Liz Clayton Scofield, Denise Tarantino, Ross Turner, Jake Weigel, Cathleen Windham, Fotios Zemenides

Juried and curated by Libby Rowe, Assistant Professor and Area Head of Photography at University of Texas @ San Antonio

As the juror for this exhibition, my primary objective was to identify work that was both high quality and that held conceptual interest.  These goals were compounded with my assignment to find a theme that held the chosen artwork together as a unified group.  In searching through the artwork submitted for this exhibition, I was struck over and over by pieces that, in one way or another, touched upon the conventional references to the human condition.

While all of the artists in the exhibition met my criteria for inclusion, specific pieces come to the forefront of my thesis.  Jake Weigel’s Collection of Black Holes holds my attention in its reference to our need to collect, categorize, and define our world into submission.  There is a diabolical impulse beneath this whimsy in the artist’s insistence that even something as intangible as a black hole can be quantified and made into an object, a tchotchke for its collector to display as proof of their ability to control what cannot be seen.

States of being: frailty, conflict, perseverance, wonder and contradiction come to a head in the work of Liz Clayton Scofield, Julie Cowan, Richard Brouillet, and Miriam Norris Omura.

Kelly Hider, Nathan Madrid, Cathleen Windham, Denise Tarantino, and Ryan Hoevenaar seek to delineate our environment and our relationship to our place in this world.

The need to communicate a narrative of our existence is evident in the work of Chris Burks, Fotios Zemenides, Laney Humphrey, Elysia Mann, and Ross Turner.

An ultimate need to create, which is at the base of the human condition, encompasses the work of Aletha Carr, Liz Heller and Mary Robinson.

The work of these artists presents an exploration that suggests at our core, we are all merely playing at the role of being human.

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Delineated

October 1-25th

A solo exhibition by

 

Amanda Joy Brown

Artist’s reception October 5th 6-9p

Originally from Fort Worth, TX via Essexville, MI, Amanda Joy Brown is a contemporary painter/installation artist who works out of her studio in Nashville, TN. Studying for a BFA in Graphic Design at Harding University, Brown became interested in painting her Sophomore year. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in 2006, and went on to earn her MFA in the painting program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

 

In this series of paintings, a geometric foundation structures the dense, chaotic, free-flowing lines forming crowds of figures. Values and colors of these geometric shapes create context for the line work, hiding and revealing figures as well as creating groupings, hierarchy, and homogeny.

 

Brown’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally with various shows in Michigan, North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Switzerland and France. She has been published by Carnegie Hall.  Amanda Joy Brown currently shows at Parker Art Gallery on Saint Simons Island, GA, and Galerie Ortus in Bonnieux, France.

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E(labor)ated Surfaces opened September 7th and ran through the 27th.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

Nervous and out of sorts, IDLE HANDS showcases a body of works that confuse aspects of religion, sexuality and power to provoke the mythic fantasies that underlie social control. This tabooed cultural nexus that subliminally conditions ultra-primal motives of self-interest at the center of the civilized order produces a context of moral uncertainty for artistic action. As an effort of social reclamation, these marks, acts, and gestures trace cross currents of desire back to their source in daily ritual and routine.