Crawl Space: September Is Stacked With Local Favorites

Wedgewood-Houston

If I had to pick one artist to represent Nashville’s contemporary art scene, Brady Haston would likely make my short list. The painter’s work has always been directly connected to his life in Middle Tennessee — it’s been inspired by the infrastructure and architecture along Dickerson Pike in East Nashville, and it’s reflected the flora, fauna and historical narratives that make up and inform our lives in Tennessee’s capital city. Haston is a familiar fixture at Zeitgeist, where his new exhibition, Optimist’s Journey, opens this Saturday night. Haston is an avid sportsman, and his recent abstract landscapes are informed by the artist’s natural explorations in Middle Tennessee. This new show’s inspirations come from further afield — the painter’s artist statement references include Pieter Bruegel, the 19th-century illustrations in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine and contemporary news reports on the interstellar object named ‘Oumuamua. Optimist’s Journey attempts to evoke the liminal timespaces of arrivals and departures, examining how our perceptions of places can change in our comings and goings. Details: Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Saturday at Zeitgeist, 516 Hagan St.

Marilee Salvator’s multimedia printmaking combines historical and nontraditional approaches to highlight symbiotic relationships between her art materials and the natural world. The Kentucky-based artist’s latest exhibition, Cultivation, opens at Coop this weekend. The show finds its creative roots in a daily outdoor ritual that the artist attended to as if she were a gardener: Every day she arranged thin sheets of Japanese kozo paper on the ground, in the sunshine. Salvator weighed the papers down with rocks so they wouldn’t blow away while she poured homemade walnut inks over them, creating organic designs that resemble river systems, flower bouquets and microscopic structures. Even Salvator’s use of Kozo paper is loaded with meaning: The translucent paper is delicate but durable like the flora and fauna that make up an ecosystem; Kozo paper is made from mulberry trees, which are considered an invasive species in Tennessee. Salvator’s prints are gorgeous, but the sculptures she crafts by combining natural materials dipped in acrylic paint can make everyday organic matter like leaves and flowers and burrs and bark seem like visitors from another world. Details: Opening reception 1-9 p.m. Saturday at Coop, 507 Hagan St.

Neue Welt is hosting a new sculpture in the courtyard of The Packing Plant this weekend. “Caryatid XL” is a figurative work by South Carolina-based artist Kevin Kao. The piece recalls classical statuary while also creating a conversation with contemporary fashion and aesthetics. Enjoy the work during the art crawl before it moves to Neue Welt’s new off-site location in rural Williamson County. Memphis-based artist Scott A. Carter’s sculptural installations often combine musical instruments, audio speakers and other elements associated with amplified music. And his latest show at Neue Welt’s gallery space at The Packing Plant is custom-made for Music City’s audio engineering nerds — with a taste for Mexican lager. Shiftless finds Carter combining glass Modelo beer bottles with audio electronics and electro-acoustic elements in a site-specific sound-sculpture installation. The work transforms the empty bottles — symbols of the artist’s own struggles with depression — into vessels full of vital air and the sounds of a strange music. Details: Opening reception 5-9 p.m. Saturday at Neue Welt, 507 Hagan St.

This Saturday night, independent curator Jay “Ghost” Sanchez is debuting a new gallery show by an artist whose roots in the local creative community run so deep he goes by just “Ol Skool.” Michael Mucker’s street-art roots in graffiti and hip-hop culture inform In My Lifetime Vol 1. It’s a collection of new music-centric works at Rock Wall Gallery inside Houston Station that finds the artist looking back at his youthful, creative beginnings through a glass dankly. Mucker painted the epic Bruce Lee mural at the old Kung Fu Coffee at The Muse, but it’s Mucker’s more personal work that hits the hardest — he might as well have called this new show Return of the Dragon. Details: Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday at Rock Wall Gallery, 434 Houston St.

Don’t leave Wedgewood-Houston on Saturday night without stopping in to see Samuel Dunson’s new exhibition at Julia Martin Gallery. Dunson’s unique, personal art has never conformed to Black art trends and clichés. And Art O’Fiscal Intelligence finds Dunson looking at Black male identity through a prehistoric, almost cosmic lens. I recently noted Dunson’s work at Tennessee State University’s pop-up at The Arcade as one of the reasons to make a trip downtown this summer, and a whole new solo show from Dunson feels like the fabulous fall art season just started early. Details: Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday at Julia Martin Gallery, 444 Humphreys St.

East Nashville

Red Arrow has a great painting-and-sculpture pairing on the menu for Saturday night. The food analogies come easy at a show that’s full of soft forms and smeared lines, and palettes that look like they were pulled from the fruits and frostings decorating a bakery display. Turn, Turn, Turn includes new paintings by Nashville’s Karen Seapker and ceramic sculptures from Fayetteville, Ark.-based artist Linda Lopez. All the work is gentle and soft, but also abstracted and sometimes slightly weird. It’s a good combination that makes an otherwise pretty show more than just pleasant to look at. Seapker’s romantic, abstract botanical paintings transport viewers to the artist’s sublime backyard garden. Lopez’s biomorphic sculptures boast almost irresistibly touchable (don’t touch them!) surfaces, but they’re also a little uncanny and unsettling. The works’ fuzzy-wuzzy textures and candy-store colors make them as endearing as they are otherworldly. Kudos to Red Arrow for this chef’s-kiss gallery pairing that’s even greater than the sum of its parts. Details: Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday at Red Arrow, 919 Gallatin Ave.