Painting and Her Women: A Feminist Palette Show is a 33-artist group show examining how women’s contributions to culture-making are often rendered secondary, anonymous or overlooked. This display smartly focuses on formalist concerns rather than resorting to cliché critical content and activist lecturing. Painting and Her Women foregrounds the materials and processes that sustain artistic practices. Of course, these include paint palettes, but also implements like the biscuit cutters and rolling pins associated with traditionally feminine domestic chores. The results are elevated artworks with advocacy baked into their textured surfaces and colorful gestures. The show highlights process, labor and material intelligence as key components of authorship, challenging the meanings of labels such as mother, woman and lady painter. The show also includes work by gentlemen painters, with a roster boasting Nashvillians and former Nashvillians like Lindsy Davis, Nick Stolle, John Paul Kesling, Virginia Griswold, Donna Woodley and more. The show launches on Feb. 3 with an opening reception, followed by an artist-led walk-through at the Wedgewood-Houston First Saturday Art Crawl on Feb. 7 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Through Feb. 24 at David Lusk Gallery
516 Hagan St.
