Living Record pairs two Nashville watercolor painters whose practices document how memory is carried in the body. Anna Wise paints luminous, layered figures, embracing a dreamy surrealism. Her work documents a somnambulant liminality where memories, dreams and the natural world all blur together at the edges. These works are purposefully mysterious but full of reassurance and hope. Anna Wallace makes her own clayboard panels before rendering hands with a process-driven intimacy rooted in a lifelong fascination with how people communicate through gesture. Every time I see an artist making a subject of hands, it always reads — in a charming way — like a flex, because every artist goes through hell learning how to draw them. The show’s centerpiece is a large-scale collaborative painting fusing Wise’s signature silhouettes with Wallace’s hands, anchoring an exhibition built on shared visual language and not just guilt by association. An interactive community engagement element of the show invites visitors to trace their own hands and add to a growing collective document over the run of the show. This is Wallace’s Nashville swan song exhibition before she relocates to Fiji, and Living Record is a hands-on send-off.
Opening reception 6-9 p.m.; through July 29 at Arcade Arts
644 W. Iris Drive
