The arrival of February's First Saturday Art Crawl means we've made it through at least one month of 2012 without the world ending. So far so good. If the pending dimensional time shift can hold its horses until Sunday, Nashville crawlers can spend their last night on earth exploring what it means to be Southern, coming to grips with the process of evolution and getting abducted by aliens.
I can't wait to have a close encounter with Steve Ward's art at Twist Gallery this month. Ward's paintings present a series of alien abduction narratives. The artist says the works "make no judgment as to the veracity or soundness of the claims they represent, but are insistent about the sincerity of those who make them."
Many of his weird and wacky canvases are broken up into comic-book-style panels that evoke early sci-fi publishing as well as the "lost time" phenomenon that any real conspiracy theorist knows is the hallmark of true contact. At least that's what somebody told me ...
The first time I visited Lori Anne Parker-Danley's studio, she was still painting in the old Ruby Green space. I was interviewing her for a radio report, and although I cut the artist out of the piece, I ended up on the receiving end of a seemingly endless stream of emails presenting new images the artist was cranking out quickly and tirelessly. While there has always been a sinewy sensuality to Parker-Danley's melancholy, bucolic (melcolic?) landscapes, there was also the sense that she was pushing through to something more. Debuting at Twist Etc. this Saturday, The Garden of Evolution is undoubtedly the artist's strongest work. Its painted skeletons, vines and ivy combine with real moss, leaves, twigs and cat fur in narratives that explore death, decay, regeneration and life. I'm going to take two Benadryl and arrive early.
The Rymer Gallery's contribution this month is a show of abstract paintings by Ed Nash. Nash calls our city home now, but the artist, appraiser and art dealer was born in Letchworth Garden City, England. Originally built and designed by Quakers, the city was a focus of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and you can see the town's blending of urban and rural life in the artist's work. Nash's geometric elements and washes of color are shot through with diaphanous light, and his best work evokes the coming together of interior and exterior landscapes alike.
Tinney Contemporary's previous exhibit featured the intense, meticulous paper-cut art of Jaq Belcher. It was easy to get lost in the gorgeous stuff and forget that the work was also meant to serve as a bare-bones record of the artist's day-to-day creative process. This month's The Architect Within by artist Peri Schwartz continues this trend with an exhibition of paintings and drawings about painting. Schwartz's works take her own studio space as their subject, creating a dialogue about art-making that turns in on itself, throwing off palimpsest ghosts and the echoes of long-lost layers of pigment.
The 40AU gallery space is proving to be a must-see stop on the art crawl. Its first two shows have put the gallery in the same league as perennial favorites like Twist and COOP galleries, and this month's show suggests that 40AU's track record is no fluke. Organized by the Co. H collective, Cognition is a group show that finds artists using photography, video and installation work to explore the way we examine and experience the world around us while simultaneously finding our place within it. The exhibit features work by Rachel Growden, David King and Courtney Ann Greenlee.
A few Art Crawl regulars will be continuing their programming from last month. Picture This on 5th will stick with a group show of gallery artists while The Arts Company will continue its celebration of Southern photography, the surprisingly dynamic The South Through Eight Lenses & a Code.
If the event ends before you're all crawled out, don't forget to stop by Suite 126 in Cummins Station for The After Crawl at Brick Factory. Curated by Open Lot, this event introduces a new art facility to Nashville, and makes it the latest destination to threaten to extend the Art Crawl into an all-night-affair. Brick Factory offers art space, equipment and classes to local creatives, and there are already plans in the works for a number of live performance events, parties, exhibits and more. Stop by and check it out between 8 p.m. and midnight.
See you on Saturday!
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
