Zeitgeist Gallery had an opening last weekend, but the rest of the Wedgewood-Houston galleries opted to nurse their New Year's hangovers and put off their openings for a week. Of course, the Second Saturday East Side Art Stumble will be bumbling about this weekend at the same time, so there will also be events worth crossing the bridge for. Here are the highlights.
East Nashville
The Red Arrow Gallery will be celebrating the grand opening of their just-renovated Gallatin Avenue space with an exhibition of new abstract paintings by Daniel Holland. This show will also include a video by Casey Pierce. For more information on the show, check out my Critic's Pick.
While the art scene in the city has been expanding over the past decade, imagery reflecting the city itself has also multiplied. I love the love between Nashville and its artists, but there are some things your eyes can see only so many times — we're looking at you, guitar art. Gallery Luperca feels my pain, and its No Skyline Nashville exhibition features odes to our city that are blessedly bereft of Batman Buildings. The lineup here includes notables like John Warren, Black & Jones and Paul Collins, who will be hanging alongside a display of Nashville-centric works by area high-schoolers that was curated by Luperca's own Sara Lederach.
A few doors down, Sawtooth Printhouse will be hosting an exhibit by Nashville artist, designer, printmaker and hand-letterer extraordinaire Jenny Lee. Sawtooth is a Stumble-must for me — there's always a bunch of fun stuff on display, and I look forward to the sensory combination of the smell of ink and the taste of PBR that always seems to define the event.
Modern East on Fatherland Street is a one-room photography gallery that regularly features three different shutterbugs in its diverse exhibitions. I never stop at Jones Fly Company or East Side Music Supply without popping my head in here. This month they'll be showing work by Dune Baydoun, Donna Kilkelly and Timothy Dugger.
Wedgewood-Houston
Zeitgeist Gallery opened Alicia Henry's The Walk last weekend, and even though I've been following Henry's work for more than a decade, every exhibition she creates seems stronger than the last. This new installation of Henry's fabric figures and mask forms includes one massive mask and a few full-size figures, but a single horizontal line that occupies about 12 feet of wall might be the most memorable element on display. Henry is sharing the space with painter Karen Barbour's How May I Help You?, a collection of the artist's dream-inspired paintings. Barbour's deceptively simple renderings were a pleasant surprise at the show's opening last weekend. Spend a little time with these on Saturday night, when Zeitgeist keeps its doors open late again. You'll be glad you did.
David Lusk Gallery will be opening two new shows this weekend: Veda Reed's Day Into Night is the octogenarian painter's new exhibition of abstract sunsets, which feature light-filled hues and feminine, undulating lines. Beth Foley's figurative narratives would be perfect illustrations in true-crime books for kids — if those were ever a thing. Foley's Murders, Misfits and Other Unpleasantries blends the artist's own family history with historical bad guys like Leopold and Loeb.
Julia Martin Gallery is taking a page from The Arts Company this month, kicking off the year with a sneak peek of the artists it will be showing in 2016. Saturday's show features a ranging roster of artists including Rebecca Green, Kevin Guthrie, Buddy Jackson, David Kring, Monique Morvant, Erin Murphy, Victoria Reynolds, Delia Seigenthaler, Emily Holt, Jeff Stamper and Julia Martin herself.
The show I'm most excited about on Saturday night is Heather Hartman's exhibition of cosmic abstracts at Channel to Channel. Some of the works on Hartman's website almost seem more design-influenced than painterly. That said, her most recent works reveal a marked leap into diffuse, light-filled color fields that emanate a felt presence. These are the kind of paintings that make eye-catching digital images, but I can't wait to see them in person on Saturday night.
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