Thursday, September 30, 2010

nashville scene

Nashville Scene
September 30, 2010 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT » ART

A roundup of First Saturday Art Crawl highlights
Crawl Space
by JOE NOLAN
click to enlarge

Extraordinary Geometries at The Rymer Gallery
It's already time for October's First Saturday Gallery Crawl, which the dipping mercury will soon lead us to rename the First Saturday Brisk Walk, to be followed by the Downtown Art Sprint. As we head into the burnt-orange grip of autumn, the October Crawl seems poised to make a particularly strong showing.

Those old enough to remember the TV show Family Affair may recall an episode when Buffy, a stubborn elementary schooler, tried to give up her beloved doll, Mrs. Beasley, cold-turkey. It was a bit like Snoopy Come Home meets Panic in Needle Park.

In Goodbye, Mrs. Beasley, on display at Tinney Contemporary, Artist Carol Es relates Buffy's loss to her own difficult childhood. Es chronicles the traumas of her childhood — growing up in a dysfunctional family amid the sweatshops of Los Angeles — through a number of multimedia canvases, painted panels and works-on-paper. Es' work here is strongest when it replaces woe with whimsy and wonder.

We've always been zealots for the more-is-more philosophy, so it's heartening to see that Twist Gallery is once again operating two spaces. This month's lineup includes a guest curator, former TAG gallery owner Jerry Dale McFadden, who now lives in Chattanooga, where he's the director of the 4 Bridges Art Festival. For his turn at Twist, he's brought a couple of fellow 'Noogans with him.

Mark Bradley-Shoup and Ron Buffington are both instructors at UT-Chattanooga. Bradley-Shoup's spare, flat paintings are inspired by graphic design, and his strongest pieces capture a harsh light that suggests what Edward Hopper might have accomplished in the graphic-novel medium. Buffington wants to demystify painting, favoring "the tainted over the pure, the flawed over the perfect, the personal over the universal and the pathetic over the heroic." But while Buffington is busy killing the Buddha, his striking work seems more than a little enlightened. Printmaker Joseph Lupo will be showing in Twist's Arcade 73 space.

After an exciting exhibit of prints and drawings last month, The Arts Company will be opening a painting show on Saturday. Tony Breuer's canvases present figurative scenes obscured and abstracted by curtains of surreal hues. Many works feature wild mustangs galloping through technicolor waves of light, while fighter jets and at least one largemouth bass appear in others.

Extraordinary Geometries opens at Rymer Gallery. Whitney Wood Bailey's large, psychedelic abstract works on paper explore the point where the natural world and our own imaginations intersect. Bailey uses "tick" markings like those found in early cave paintings to create intricate textures from which colorful abstractions explode, resulting in a transcendent sensory experience.

Estel Gallery will be opening a new show by an old favorite. An Atmosphere for Living: New Narrative Paintings by Harry Underwood finds the titular artist displaying his latest canvases back on home turf, following recent exhibits in Paris (yes, the one in France) and London. Though he's been a formidable presence on the local scene for years, Underwood deserves a most-improved-painter award — his recent work demonstrates a restless progress that finds him paring down his pop-culture postcard paintings to poetic scenes that evoke pathos as much as pith.

We are writing this roundup of Saturday's events by the light of a harvest moon on the autumnal equinox. Welcome to fall!

Email arts@nashvillescene.com.

Kristina Arnold's drawings that can fit in your pocket

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

soundcrawl 2.0

Did the inaugural event last year leave you wanting more? Have you heard about it, and wondered it is? Check out the "ABOUT" page from the official SoundCrawl website.
I'm looking forward to being serenaded this Saturday evening with avant garde goodness brought about by talented friend and artist, Aaron Hoke Doenges. You won't want to miss this!

ABOUT: SoundCrawl
Picture a Saturday night in Nashville when all the galleries are open. Beautiful people, drinks in hand, drift from one gallery to another to experience the best the city has to offer in visual art.
Now imagine that at various points along the way something new has been added, an opportunity to experience a new kind of art, art that you HEAR....sound art.
So in between the experience of the visual arts, artists and guests alike gather to listen to....a rhythmic beat of water drops....or a dizzying immersion of the sound of coins moving through space...synthetic audio wrapping around, tickling the ear drums of the city.
After a successful inaugural event last year, SoundCrawl:Nashville is returning this fall for a second sonic immersion of Music City. During the downtown ArtCrawl on October 2nd, from 6-9pm, Nashville will once again dive into the world of experimental audio with new sound art compositions from around the world. Compositions that immerse. Compositions that resonate. Compositions that explore.
about the ArtCrawl: (from www.artatthearcade.com):Every first Saturday of the month, the historic Arcade in downtown Nashville comes to life with over one thousand visitors. Multiple galleries open their doors to avid art lovers as well as anyone else that is just curious to see what the Gallery Crawl is all about. Art at the Arcade is a collective organization that hosts an assortment of contemporary artists from throughout the world to Nashville.
what is SoundArt: Between 1930 and 1965, composer Edgard Varèse gave a series of lectures that have since been collected and titled “The Liberation of Sound.” In these lectures, Varese was trying to understand – and explain – his own approach to sonic expression. He, along with Pierre Schaeffer and others, began to explore the organization of sonic materials – sounds from the ambient world, evolving electronic technology, and the traditional instruments used for centuries– in any and every combination into cohesive works of audio art on phonograph (and then tape, and now computer).
The only definition that seemed to fit his music was simply: “organized sound.”
This definition has been given several labels through the years: musique concrète (in the French, Varèse and Schaeffer’s native tongue), electroacoustic music, sound collage, sound music, sound art, etc., etc. Some of these labels focus on very specific types of audio used. Some do not. Each one, however, is all encompassing of sound. Any sound. That has been organized in some way.
It’s a pretty broad definition.
The cultural and mechanical forces that influenced Varèse and Schaeffer have only become more powerful in the intervening years. With the advent of the computer and audio software, the production possibilities of sound organization – something that this town knows a bit about - seem endless. This power has brought with it technological ubiquity – computers are everywhere – and with ubiquity has come the commonplace, and with the commonplace comes the ability to focus not only on the medium (the technology used) but also on the expression (the art of the sounds used). And has changed the art of sound as we know it.
So what is sound art?
Sound \'saund\: the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing
Art \'ärt\: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects
Sound Art \'saund ' ärt\: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in producing aesthetic sensations perceived by the sense of hearing.
Sound. Collage. Expression. Audio. Organization. Consciousness. Creativity. Music. Art.

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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Mark Bradley-Shoup & Ron Buffington, Oct. 2 – 30, Twist etc.



Mark Bradley-Shoup & Ron Buffington, Oct. 2 – 30, Twist Art Gallery

Arcade spaces #75 & 77

It’s been a little over two years since former TAG gallery owner and
independent curator Jerry Dale McFadden has had anything to do with
the Nashville art scene. Despite honorable attempts at bringing
national and international contemporary artists to a Nashville
audience, McFadden found himself unable to weather the economic
downturn and ended up closing his commercial gallery after 8 years.
He has spent the past two years working in the arts non-profit world
as one of several directors at the Association for Visual Arts, a
unique organization that has helped transition the small but mighty
town of Chattanooga into an arts destination.

Jerry Dale returns to the scene of the crime by guest curating a small
exhibit for October’s schedule at Twist Art Gallery in downtown
Nashville’s historic Arcade. With Fall primarily seen as the start of
the art season, it seemed a good time to introduce Nashville to some
of the art rumblings going on down south in his new hometown of
Chattanooga.

Opening October 2nd along with the monthly “Downtown Art Crawl” which
he helped to establish several years ago, McFadden brings together the
artwork of two young contemporary painters, Mark Bradley-Shoup and Ron
Buffington. Both artists are instructors at the University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga and have shown extensively around the
country.

McFadden has this to say of the work...

“Though both artists work in different styles of painting, I wanted to
see Mark and Ron’s work exhibited together in hopes that the viewer
might notice an unplanned dialogue between these two friends.
Bradley-Shoup’s semi-photorealistic paintings are reduced to flat and
muted colors that highlight the angular edges of everyday life, while
Buffington’s own angles and color shapes of abstraction hint at
similar sources. There’s a friendly painter camaraderie going on,
though neither artist work together, at least not in that capacity.
Fans of each other’s work, one can see how these two artists settle in
easily when the subject of theory and inspiration come up.

This will be a beautiful show and I look forward to seeing old friends
and familiar faces at the reception!”

Both Chattanooga artists will be in attendance for this small and
intimate showing at Twist. The show remains on exhibit the month of
October, through the 30th.



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Twist Art Gallery
www.twistartgallery.com
73 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(888) 535-5286

Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl

Joseph Lupo at Twist Art Gallery #73 october 2010

Twist Art Gallery presents: Joseph Lupo for October 2010 in space 73.




Joseph Lupo was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1977. From there he grew
up in Schaumburg, a Northwest Suburb of Chicago.

In 1999 Joseph received his BFA from Bradley University, a small
university located in Peoria, Illinois. His undergraduate training
was mainly in Intalgio and Relief. While at Bradley, Joseph was
taught by accomplished printmaker Oscar Gillespie. Bradley offered
professional printing experience through the Cradle Oak Press.
Through the press, Joseph was able to work on prints by artists
Warrington Colescott, Richard Hull, and Katsunori Haminishi.

After graduating from Bradley University, Joseph entered graduate
studies at The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. At Georgia,
Joseph was taught by printmakers Carmon Colangelo, Melissa Harshman,
Joe Sanders, Rick Johnson, and Tom Hammond. UGA also gave Joseph the
opportunity to widen his range of techniques, and learned lithography,
silkscreen, and photo transfer techniques. He was also able to be an
assistant printer for artists Ralph Steadman and Sue Coe. During this
time, his work was shown not only in Athens but also at Saltworks
Gallery, Youngblood Gallery, and The Contemporary Art Center in
Atlanta.

Joseph earned his MFA in 2002, then moved to back to Chicago. While
in Chicago Joseph taught classes at Robert Morris College and Moraine
Valley Community College. He also showed work at Gallery 312, Anchor
Graphics, and The Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago.

Joseph Lupo joined the faculty at West Virginia University in 2004.
His work in the classroom focuses on intaglio, lithography, relief,
silkscreen, and digital printmaking for both graduate and
undergraduate students. Since joining the faculty, he has been the
Printmaking Department Coordinator and the Visiting Artist
Coordinator. He has been working with graduate students and
Pittsburgh based press Artist Image Resource to offer internships to
WVU students.

Joseph’s work has been a part of over 50 different juried and curated
shows in Illinois, Texas, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Washington,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Michigan, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Colorado, Ohio, and Arizona.
With solo/two-person shows in Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia.



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Wednesday, September 15, 2010





Sunday, September 5, 2010

Matthew Carver

Thursday, September 2, 2010

printmaking fun