For images for use by the press, please call Anne Brown at The Arts Company, 615-254-2040 or Toll Free: 1-877-694-2040
The Arts Company
Presents
“The Art of Music, Flags, and Flowers”
Artwork selected to refresh your summer
Opening Saturday, July 11, 2009
6:00pm-9:00pm
&
The annual Brother Mel exhibit continues
10:00am-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday
215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North
Nashville, TN – The Arts Company has joined forces with other galleries downtown to shift the First Saturday Downtown Art Crawl from July 4 to the following Saturday, July 11,same time, same galleries on Fifth Avenue and same free shuttle service provided by the Nashville Downtown Partnership between galleries.This change of date has been made in July because the July 4th holiday falls on the First Saturday.
Therefore, The Arts Company announces “The Art of Music, Flags, and Flowers,” an exhibit planned specifically for summertime viewing, scheduled to open Saturday, July 11, 6-9 pm, along with exhibits by neighboring downtown galleries also participating in the monthly First Saturday Downtown Art Crawl.The exhibit will continue through July 24, along with the annual Brother Mel exhibit, during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm Tuesday-Saturday at the downtown gallery location at 215 Fifth Avenue, North.
About the Exhibit
The art of music includes classic music portraits by Sorrento and painted musical instruments with painted canvas counterparts by Michael Bush; the art of flowers features Daniel Phill and Nicole Katano.Five artists—Brother Mel, Myles Maillie, Bob McGill, Norris Hall, and Jorge Arrieta—have been commissioned by the gallery to create special artist flags.An added attraction is that the annual Brother Mel exhibit will continue through July 24.To preview the exhibits and more, check the gallery website at www.theartscompany.com and click on Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr at the top of the home page.
The Art of Books
Hundreds of selected art books in The Arts Company collection will be offered at a 40% discount during the July exhibit.This reduction in art book inventory is designed to make room for new book inventories in the fall.
About The Arts Company / 2009
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone on Fifth Avenue in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and outside exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturdays and Art After Hours is also available on the website, as well as daily entries on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.Regular gallery hours are: 10:00am-5:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company presents “The Art of Flags” during Art After Hours A monthly series of city-wide gallery events
Sponsored by the Nashville Association of Art Dealers
Thursday, July 2, 5-8 pm
Featuring five original artist flags commissioned by the gallery:
Brother Mel, Myles Maillie, Norris Hall, Bob McGill, and Jorge Arrieta
The Arts Company invites guests to stop by on their way home during Art After Hours on Thursday, July 2. The Arts Company has commissioned five artists—Brother Mel, Jorge Arrieta, Myles Maillie, Norris Hall, and Bob McGill—to create limited-edition artist flags to feature during Art After Hours at their downtown gallery at 215Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North, on Thursday, July 2, 5-8 pm.Art After Hours is a monthly city-wide series of art gallery events sponsored by the Nashville Association of Art Dealers to acquaint Nashvillians and visitors with the variety and quality of art galleries and resources available in the Nashville area.
Guests are invited to The Arts Company to meet and greet some of the artists commissioned to create flags for the occasion and to enjoy very cool refreshments and very fresh art.The annual Brother Mel exhibit will continue.To preview The Arts Company events, check the website and related online sources:www.theartscompany.com, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.
Two other galleries on Fifth Avenue in the same block with The Arts Company—Tinney Contemporary and The Rymer Gallery—will also offer something special in their galleries during Art After Hours.For a complete list of participating galleries for the July Art After Hours, contact www.nashvilleartdealers.org.
Nashville, TN – The Arts Company welcomes Brother Mel for his 11th annual Nashville exhibition, “What’s New with Brother Mel This Year?” opening officially on First Saturday, June 6, during a reception for the artist, 6-9 pm.The exhibit will continue through July 18.This year, Brother Mel has been experimenting sculpturally with wagon wheels, rusted tools, bicycles and M&M shapes, as well as with large bold abstract watercolors, and other pieces that defy description.Brother Mel, in attendance for the exhibit opening, will also be previewing his upcoming book, Brother Mel:A Lifetime of Making Art, to be released this fall.
ART AFTER HOURS / A Special Preview with Brother Mel
The Arts Company will offer a special advance preview reception for Brother Mel and the forthcoming book during Art After Hours, June 4, from 5-7 pm at the gallery. Art After Hours is a new initiative inviting the public to tour citywide art galleries after hours on the First Thursday of every month.The event is sponsored by the Nashville Association of Art Dealers, an alliance of art galleries dedicated to raising awareness of the visual arts in Middle Tennessee. Visit www.nashvilleartdealers.net for a list of participating galleries.
About the Exhibit / “What’s New with Brother Mel This Year?”
Brother Mel’s annual June exhibition at The Arts Company is always a highly anticipated event because he is here in person to discuss his most recent work, and his work always has a surprise element.It takes a very large truck to bring his exhibits to the gallery, and hours of photographing, documenting and preparing them for exhibition.He is a widely popular gallery favorite, partly because of the unpredictable nature of his artwork, which will be par for the course this year as well.His annual Nashville exhibits are special because he celebrates his June birthday here each year.This year marks his 81st birthday, and it is also the year a new book on his life and work is being completed by The Arts Company.The book will be previewed during this year’s exhibit.
About the Artist / Brother Mel
Brother Mel has been a full-time artist for over 50 years and a brother in the Marianist community, a Catholic brotherhood, for over 60 years.Brother Mel received an undergraduate degree in English and History from DaytonUniversity in 1951, and a master’s degree in fine art from the University of Notre Dame in 1960, studying with Jean Charlot, one of the Mexican Renaissance muralists alongside Diego Rivera, and Ivan Mestrovic, the sculptor whom Rodin described as “a phenomenon among sculptors.”In 1957-58, he studied with two European masters of stained glass—Jacques le Chevallier in Paris and Yoki Abescher in Fribourg—as part of a year of intense study, making art, and traveling on a motor scooter over 14,000 miles during that year.
In the late 1960s, Brother Mel became the first Marianist brother to take on the vocation of artist as his full-time work as a Marianist.He was encouraged to form his own studio, and he began his lifetime of making art, first with glass, frescoes and icons for churches and chapels, and later extending to outfitting 25 Adams Mark Hotels with paintings and sculpture, and other large buildings.Since the late 1960s, he has produced over 10,000 documented works of art, plus public and private commissions and the paintings and watercolors from a period of 28 years of annual painting trips.His artistic mentors include Van Gogh, Picasso, Calder, and David Smith, among others, artists to whom he is attracted by their endless creativity and inventiveness, both traits that apply to his work as well.
The Art of Books / About the Brother Mel Book
Brother Mel:A Lifetime of Making Art is a 200-page study of Brother Mel’s dual life as an artist and as a Marianist brother in a Catholic community.The first part of the book addresses his life from his family, his spiritual commitment, his distinguished artistic education, his decades of travel, his influences, the development of his studio, and his commitment to making art 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, since the 1960s.
The second part of the book is a portfolioof selected images from the thousands of works of art he has produced over a 50-year period.The images are presented in various sections of his special interests and productivity—from his early days of glass, chapels, frescoes, and icons to sculpture, paintings, handmade paper—and his recent work since 2000, which is all over the board.
About The Arts Company / 2009
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and outside exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday and Art After Hours is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10:00am-5:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
Nashville, TN – The Arts Company presents FRESH ART, featuring two one-man exhibitions—“Contemporary Southern Narratives,” a new style of painting by David Benson, and new oil paintings by David Swanagin—opening during FirstArtSaturday, May 2, 6-9 pm, with a special artist preview at 5 pm in the downtown gallery at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. An additional showcase exhibition of new work and new artists will be presented in a Fresh Art Showcase, upstairs at The Arts Company. All exhibits will continue through May 22 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday. Preview all exhibits at www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibits
Two one-man exhibittions will present two painters who work in totally different styles. Each artist has just completed new work specifically for their exhibits, addressing subjects of interest to Nashvillians—from music to neighborhoods to landscapes to the visual journey of an Ugly Duckling. The Fresh Art Showcase, which opens upstairs at The Arts Company at the same time, introduces four new painters to the gallery and welcomes new work from four gallery artists.
The Arts Company welcomes David Benson, a South Carolina-based artist who has just completed an extraordinary new series of paintings specifically for this Nashville gallery. Benson employs canvas, paper, drawing, painting, and many other artistic surprises in his work. He has developed his own distinctive style and technique for presenting elements of southern culture in new ways, bringing to his work the sophistication of an accomplished artist.
David Swanagin, a Nashville-based artist, continues as a favorite gallery artist who continues his passion of making paintings of familiar Tennessee landscapes. Just completed in time for the exhibit, his new work will focus on the strong colors familiar in Middle Tennessee.
The Fresh Art Showcase introduces four new painters to the gallery, and new work by continuing four continuing gallery artists
About the Artist / David Benson
David Benson’s off-the-charts different idea of painting makes a preview with the artist particularly exciting to people interested in how he makes his art. Though recently retired from teaching for thirty years, his own artwork which he presents in museums and in galleries is anything but academic. Benson has grown up in the south, and often addresses difficult southern narratives, typically in the straightforward manner of the nature of the subject matter, but also with a sense of whimsy in outlook and materials.
About his work, Benson says “My interest in Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, and a few impressionist painters are at times clearly evident in my compositions. I use little color, opting for a more achromatic result. I have always felt that the more bizarre the media, the more opportunity exists for discovery and expression.” His goal, he says, is to give the observer an experience that is both spiritual and intimate, claiming that aesthetics “are not essential to the themes of my work,” preferring to make the narrative of his southern culture primary.. This work is meant to be seen up close and personal. It is rich and rewarding.
About the Artist / David Swanagin
David Swanagin claims two home bases—Nashville and Augusta, Georgia. Originally from the Low Country in South Carolina, he comes by his passion for painting landscapes quite honestly. He has produced numerous paintings of landscapes, including the golf courses of Augusta, the Low Country, Tennessee landscapes. He has also been on client-sponsored painting trips to Ireland, Italy, and France.
Swanagin, a self-taught artist, has established his own contemporary version of traditional landscapes. As a real Renaissance man, Swanagin is also a very successful Nashville-based drummer who tours constantly and uses photographs from his road trips for paintings in his studio later.
About the Fresh Art Showcase
The artist showcase upstairs at The Arts Company introduces new gallery painters Curt Ginther, Daniel Phill, Carl Plansky, and Steven Walker; and will showcase new work by continuing gallery artists Kimiko, Bernice Davidson, and Andy Todd; and special new felt portraits by Jeff Hand. Preview the Fresh Art Showcase at www.theartscompany.com.
About The Arts Company / 2009
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and outside exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10:00am-5:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The third of three consecutive exhibitions of Baeder photographs,
a series of selected images of 20th century American roadside icons
by legendary photorealist painter JOHN BAEDER
Opening April 4, 2009
6:00pm-9:00pm
Preview with John Baeder at 5:00 pm
FirstArtSaturday
at
The Arts Company
Exhibit continues through May 22
10:00am-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday
215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North
Nashville, TN – The opening of “JOHN BAEDER’S AMERICAN ROADSIDE:EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS” at The Arts Company, April 4,marks the final exhibition of three consecutive one-man exhibits of John Baeder’s photographs.This landmark exhibition of the photographs of legendary photorealist painter John Baeder opens 6-9 pm at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.An artist preview reception with John Baeder is scheduled in advance at 5:00 pm. The exhibit will continue through May 22, during regular gallery hours, 10-5 pm, Tuesday-Saturday along with selections from the two earlier exhibits of his vintage photographs.Additional information is available at www.theartscompany.com or at 615-254-2040.
About the Exhibit
The Arts Company’s April exhibit of John Baeder’s photographs features early photographs from the 1970s in a series of C Prints on Kodak Endura Paper in a limited edition of 10.The exhibit is presented in cooperation with the ThomasPaulFineArtGallery in Los Angeles.The photographs are iconic 20th century images, most of them printed for the first time.In the 1960s, John Baeder began pursuing his passion for the American roadside—diners, signs, gas stations, and other urban icons—with a camera.He has continued making photographs ever since, but he used them mostly as references for the photorealist paintings he produced beginning in the 1970s.This year is the first time his photographs have been singled out as important in their own right as photographs, and this exhibit presents the first selection of 27 images chosen for this inaugural exhibit series.
In addition to the photography exhibit, one of Baeder’s iconic photographic images of a drive-in theatre—“Star Vue”—will be featured in a limited edition of 40 posters to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Nashville Film Festival.During the April 4th opening, The Arts Company will be hosting the Third Annual Nashville Film Festival Preview, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the prestigious film festival.This is the second time a John Baeder image has been selected by the festival as their official poster.
About the Painter and His Photographs / John Baeder
Throughout his college years at Auburn University, John Baeder was enamored unconsciously by the pre-interstate back road, Highway 29, between his home town of Atlanta and Auburn University in Alabama—the eateries, the motels, gas stations, and hand-painted road signs.At age 21, back in Atlanta, he became an ad agency art director for a NY-based ad agency, and at the same time began taking black and white photographs with his Kodak Brownie—the storefronts, signs, cars, and people on the street—documenting the old city that was becoming the new city of Atlanta.
Once he moved to New York City in 1964, Baeder amassed hundreds of photographs of his own, and continued to document the people and places around him in NYC and environs, especially old diners, which he envisioned as “temples from a lost civilization.” When he was discovered by the legendary art dealer Ivan Karp and began painting diners in 1974 for Karp’s O.K.HarrisGallery, Baeder’s career as a painter became paramount.However, his photographs continued to be important to him in their own right, as well as references for his canvases and watercolors. He has realized only recently the affinity between his photographs and those of the documentary photographers of the WPA and FSA in the 1930s and 40s, including Ben Shahn, Bernice Abbott, and Walker Evans.
The photographs included in this exhibit are 20” x 30” c-prints in an exclusive edition of 10, printed by the Thomas Paul Fine Art Gallery in Los Angeles, in cooperation with John Baeder and The Arts Company.
John Baeder, An American Original
Other artists have been interested in using the image of the once ubiquitous American diner, but John Baeder is credited with making the diner image into an American icon through capturing hundreds of diners across the United States with his camera.His photographs of 20th century American roadside icons are just now being discovered as having their own distinctive artistic merit—as photographs.Though he has been presented in two or three occasional shows of his photographs, it is just now that the photographs are being noted and presented for their own merit.The paintings based on his photographs are the paintings that have lifted Baeder to the top echelon of photorealist painters of the 20th century, for which he has long been acclaimed.
The Art of Books
The Art of Books is a signature series at The Arts Company, presenting a range of books related to art and artists of interest to the gallery.John Baeder is known as an accomplished writer as well as an artist.During this exhibit series, all of Baeder’s books—including Diners; Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art ; Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way; Gas, Food, and Lodging; and Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way (the catalog accompanying a traveling museum show of his work) will be available.In addition, a new film on John Baeder the artist, recently completed by Nashvillian Curt Hahn’s Film House, will be available.A special catalog of this exhibit will be available during the exhibit.
About The Arts Company / 2009
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10:00am-5:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
Nashville, TN- “John Baeder Photographs: Street Signs as Folk Art and Nashville: The Early 80s” opens at The Arts Company March 7, 2009, 6-9 pm during FirstArtSaturday, featuring photographs of hand-painted folk art signs from the 70s and Nashville in the early 80s by John Baeder, legendary photorealist artist and Nashville resident.The Arts Company is celebrating the photography of John Baeder with three consecutive one-man exhibits in February, March, and April.This second exhibit will continue through March 27, during regular gallery hours, 10:00am-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday, at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.For information:254-2040 or www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit
The March exhibit of John Baeder’s photographs—the second show in a series of three consecutive one-man shows—features hand-painted folk art signs photographed by Baeder in the 1970s; and selected images remaining from his early 1980s series on Nashville.Since the 1960s, Baeder has been making photographs out of his lifelong passion for the American roadside—diners, signs, and other urban icons.Since the 1970s, Baeder has been considered one of the top American photorealist painters.The hundreds of slides were not always intended as part of his paintings, though he produced work prints for his paintings and wrote books about many of the subjects of his photographs. The Nashville images are particularly interesting because of the places that captured his attention when he first moved to Nashville in the early 1980s.
About the Painter and His Photographs / John Baeder
Throughout his college years at Auburn University, John Baeder was enamored unconsciously by the pre-interstate back road, Highway 29, between his home town of Atlanta and Auburn University in Alabama—the eateries, the motels, gas stations, and hand-painted road signs.At age 21, back in Atlanta, he became an ad agency art director for a NY-based ad agency, and at the same time began taking black and white photographs with his Kodak Brownie—the storefronts, signs, cars, and people on the street—documenting the old city that was becoming the new city of Atlanta
Once he moved to New York City in 1964, Baeder amassed hundreds of photographs of his own, and continued to document the people and places around him in NYC and environs, especially old diners, which he envisioned as “temples from a lost civilization.” When he was discovered by the legendary art dealer Ivan Karp and began painting diners in 1974 for Karp’s O.K.HarrisGallery, Baeder’s career as a painter became paramount.However, his photographs continued to be important to him in their own right, as well as references for his canvases and watercolors. He has realized only recently the affinity between his photographs and those of the documentary photographers of the WPA and FSA in the 1930s and 40s, including Ben Shahn, Bernice Abbott, and Walker Evans.
The photographs included in this exhibit are 8 x 10 c-prints that were the subject of one of his books, Sign Language:Street Signs as Folk Art, published n 1996.The remaining prints from the making of that book are included in this exhibit.
John Baeder, An American Original and a Distinctive Nashvillian
Other artists have been interested in using the image of the once ubiquitous American diner, but John Baeder is credited with making the diner image into an American icon through capturing hundreds of diners across the United States with his camera.The paintings based on those photographic images are the paintings that have lifted Baeder to the top echelon of photorealist painters of the 20th century, for which he has long been acclaimed.
His photographs are just now being discovered as having their own distinctive artistic merit—as photographs.Though he has been presented in two or three occasional shows of his photographs, it is just now that the photographs are being noted and presented for their own merit.
In a 1977 introduction to Baeder’s Diners, Vincent Scully, Yale University Sterling Emeritus Professor of History of Art in Architecture, characterized Baeder’s version of the American experience as “youthful, hopeful, a painter-poet who makes us see the beauty of common things—not how funny they are, or how disgusting, or how powerfully expressive even, or how frightening, or just how big—but how lovely, how seen with love.”Scully added: “Baeder writes the same way.”
John Baeder is painter, poet, and photographer—a consummate American original artist, and a consummate original Nashvillian.For him, Nashville was love at first sight.He came to visit a friend in Nashville in 1980, and quickly decided to move here and set up a working studio.He had already made many of the sign photographs, and was compelled immediately to photograph subjects of interest to him in Nashville.That’s what this exhibit is about—Baeder’s passion for places and people.Nashville is a significant part of that passion in his work as in his life.
The Art of Books
The Art of Books is a signature series at The Arts Company, presenting a range of books related to art and artists of interest to the gallery.John Baeder is known as an accomplished writer as well as an artist.During this exhibit series, all of Baeder’s books—including Diners; Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art ; Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way; Gas, Food, and Lodging; and Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way (the catalog accompanying a traveling museum show of his work) will be available.In addition, a new film on John Baeder the artist, recently completed by Nashvillian Curt Hahn’s Film House, will be available.
About The Arts Company / 2009
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10:00am-5:00pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The First of Three Consecutive Baeder Exhibitions at the Gallery
Showcasing One-Of-a-Kind Large-Scale Color Work Prints
Opening February 7, 2009
6:00pm-9:00pm
FirstArtSaturday
at
The Arts Company
A preview reception for the artist
5-6 pm
Exhibit continues through February 27
10:00am-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday
215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North
Nashville, TN- “John Baeder Photographs: Work Prints” opens at The Arts Company February 7, 2009, 6-9 pm during FirstArtSaturday, featuring one-of-a-kind large-scale color prints used as references for paintings by John Baeder, legendary photorealist artist and Nashville resident.John Baeder will be in the gallery from 5:00-6:00 to preview the exhibit ahead of the opening.The Arts Company celebrates the photography of John Baeder with three consecutive one-man exhibits in February, March, and April.This initial exhibit will continue through February 27, during regular gallery hours, 10:00am-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday, at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.For information:254-2040 or www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit The February exhibit of John Baeder’s photographs will present for the first time one-of-a-kind work prints used as references for selected paintings in “Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way,” the catalog that accompanies a traveling retrospective exhibition of master paintings by John Baeder.The reference prints featured in the Arts Company exhibit are the ones used for many of the paintings in the museum exhibit, especially those such as Tootsies, Big Boy, Candyland, Brown’s Diner, and other Nashville sites included in that exhibit, currently showing at the Tennessee State Museum through February 15.On Saturday, February 7, the State Museum will host an afternoon premier film screening with Baeder (for information, www.tnmuseum.org), followed by appearances of Baeder at the museum and at The Arts Company (5-6 pm)—located just one block from each other—during the FirstArtSaturday event scheduled for 6-9 pm that evening.
About the Painter and His Photographs / John Baeder Throughout his college years at Auburn University, John Baeder was enamoured unconsciously by the pre-interstate back road, Highway 29, between his home town of Atlanta and Auburn University in Alabama—the eateries, the motels, gas stations, and hand-painted road signs.At age 21, back in Atlanta, he became an ad agency art director for a NY-based ad agency, and at the same time began taking black and white photographs with his Kodak Brownie—the storefronts, signs, cars, and people on the street—documenting the old city that was becoming the new city of Atlanta
Once he moved to New York City in 1964, Baeder amassed hundreds of photographs of his own, and continued to document the people and places around him in NYC and environs, especially old diners, which he envisioned as “temples from a lost civilization.” When he was discovered by the legendary art dealer Ivan Karp and began painting diners in 1974 for Karp’s O.K.HarrisGallery, Baeder’s career as a painter became paramount.However, his photographs continued to be important to him in their own right, as well as references for his canvases and watercolors. He has realized only recently the affinity between his photographs and those of the documentary photographers of the WPA and FSA in the 1930s and 40s, including Ben Shahn, Bernice Abbott, and Walker Evans.
Over the years, the work prints, which were used as reference for his paintings, were stacked in a corner of his studio.The idea of an exhibit focusing on those vintage work prints emerged—resulting in this first gallery showing of his vintage work prints.Exhibiting these photographs is intended to offer insight into how an artist using one medium can often rely heavily on another, and beyond that, how each artistic medium can hold its own.
John Baeder, An American Original John Baeder was known first for developing the diner image into an American icon, according to a commentary by Virginia Anne Bonito, art historian and Yale professor of Italian Renaissance painting, adding that “with tenacity and consistency he has made pilgrimage after pilgrimage to capture, lovingly, with his camera images of hundreds of diners across the United States.”He translated those images into paintings that are filled with discipline, rigor, and passion.In addition, his paintings have covered many other subjects of the American urban and roadside culture of mid-century America.
Bonito notes “Baeder belongs to the tradition of 19th and 20th Century realists and regionalist painters and pictorial journalists, who explored with contagious humanity the character of ordinary Americans as they imprinted themselves upon the American landscape.”For Nashvillians, an important part of that landscape has included Nashville.
Vincent Scully, Yale University Sterling Emeritus Professor of History of Art in Architecture, , in a 1977 introduction to Baeder’s Diners characterized Baeder’sversion of the American experience as “youthful, hopeful, a painter-poet who makes us see the beauty of common things—not how funny they are, or how disgusting, or how powerfully expressive even, or how frightening, or just how big—but how lovely, how seen with love.”Scully added: “Baeder writes the same way.”
John Baeder is painter, poet, and photographer—a consummate American original artist.
The Art of Books The Art of Books is a signature series at The Arts Company, presenting a range of books related to art and artists of interest to the gallery.John Baeder is known as an accomplished writer as well as an artist.During this exhibit series, all of Baeder’s books—including Diners; Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art ; Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way; and Gas, Food, and Lodging will be available.In addition, a new film on John Baeder the artist, recently completed by Nashvillian Curt Hahn’s Film House, will be available.
Attachment to Press Release
For February 2009
John Baeder Photographs
at The Arts Company
A Series of Three Consecutive One-Man Exhibits
FEBRUARY – MARCH – APRIL
February 7
“John Baeder Photographs: Work Prints”
Work prints used as references for photorealist paintings
March 7
“John Baeder Photographs:Vintage Hand-Painted Signs and Nashville, the Early 80s”
Photographs of anonymous hand-painted signs from a series started in 1963; and Nashville in the early 80s.
April 4
“John Baeder’s American Roadside”
Limited-edition master prints of selected Baeder images from the 1970s-80s, presented in cooperation with Thomas Paul Fine Art Gallery in Los Angeles.
The Annual January Artist Preview Celebrating the Gallery’s 13th YearAnd all the good changes to come
Opening During FirstArtSaturday January 3, 6-9 pm
Nashville, TN – The Arts Company presents “The Best is Yet to Come,” the theme of the first FirstArtSaturday of the New Year. Opening January 3, 6-9 pm, this annual gallery artist preview marks the beginning of a baker’s dozen of years for this cornerstone gallery located at 215 Fifth Avenue, North, in downtown Nashville. The artist showcase this year will include new work by gallery artists, including Brother Mel, John Nikolai, and David Swanagin, among others. New artists and upcoming exhibits to be previewed include work print photographs by legendary photorealist painter and Nashville resident John Baeder, wall sculpture by Richard Taylor, and paintings by Dolores Justus and Curt Ginther, while also opening an ongoing showcase of fine art photography in an upstairs studio gallery.
About “The Best is Yet to Come”
Every January, The Arts Company welcomes the New Year with new artwork, new artists, new ideas, and new events. This year, the gallery begins its thirteenth year in business—a baker’s dozen of years: twelve years completed and a New Year beginning. The January artist showcase will feature old friends—Brother Mel and his “Super Bowls” for the Super Bowl, and new exquisite original photographs by John Nikolai. New artists and artwork feature Richard Taylor’s sculpture, and unknown photographs from the 60s, 70s, 80s by John Baeder, renowned photorealist painter.
About the January Exhibitions
The January showcase at The Arts Company will feature new work and classics from gallery artists, in spaces upstairs and down. The extensive collection of photography at the gallery will be featured in new gallery space upstairs dedicated to fine art photography. Downstairs will focus on new work by various gallery artists—painters, photographers and sculptors, as well as introducing some new artists. The December exhibit—“Wood, Canvas, Clay”—will continue through January 9
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, and affordable artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists and participates with other nearby galleries to promote Art on 5th Avenue of the Arts during FirstArtSaturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, the Company presents a signature series—“The Art of Books,” a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
Randy Shull, Maria-Louise Coil, Sarah Emerson and Krista Grecco
Exhibit curator: Brian Downey
Opening Artist Reception
During FirstArtSaturday
December 6, 6-9 pm
Exhibit continues through January 8
“Wood, Canvas and Clay” is scheduled to open at The Arts Company December 6, 6-9 pm, during the monthly FirstArtSaturday exhibit, and introduces four new artists to Nashville—Randy Shull,furniture-maker and painter; Maria-Louise Coil, mixed media artist; Sarah Emerson, painter; and Krista Grecco, sculptor. The exhibit continues through January 8, during regular gallery hours at 215 Fifth Avenue, North, 10-5 pm, Tuesday-Saturday. The gallery will be closed for Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. For additional information call 254-2040 or visit www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit
“Wood, Canvas and Clay” is an exciting new show that will introduce four artists to the gallery and to Nashville. The exhibit will include furniture and paintings on wood by Asheville artist Randy Shull, as well as small mixed-media images of Nashville signs on box panels by Atlanta artist, Maria-Louise Coil. Canvas is brought to life with the vibrant colors and stunning animal imagery by another Atlanta artist, Sarah Emerson. And last but not least, figurative clay sculptures with a twist by Krista Grecco, also from Atlanta, will be on display during the exhibit.
About the Artists / Artwork
Randy Shull
Randy Shull is an artist who works fluidly among a variety of mediums, including furniture design, architecture, painting, and landscape design. He is highly acclaimed for his rich and sensual use of color and space. Awarded a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in 1994, an NEA Southern Arts Federation grant in 1995, and a master residency at OregonSchool of Arts & Crafts in Portland, Shull has also had four solo shows in New York in the past decade. His work is included in a number of important museum collections including The Brooklyn Museum; The High Museum in Atlanta; The Renwick Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.; The Mint Museum of Craft & Design in Charlotte; Racine Museum of Art; The Gregg Museum of Art & Design, and Museum of Art and Design in New York. Shull stays involved in his local community by serving on the board of the AshevilleArt Museum. He has studios in Asheville, NC and Merida, Mexico.
The garden he created at his Asheville home was featured in an article in the June 2006 issue of Metropolitan Home. In 2008 and 2009 Randy’s work will be the subject of a twenty-year retrospective that opens on January 24th at the GreggMuseum of Art & Design at NC State, and travels to the San FranciscoMuseum of Craft & Design as well as The Bellview Art Museum and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Maria-Louise Coil After attending the University of Georgia where she received a BFA in photography as well as a BFA in graphic design, Maria-Louise Coil moved to New York where she freelanced as a graphic designer and photographer. Coil worked as an illustrator for Calvin Klein and created the photography for the front and back cover of the book included in REM’s 2001 limited edition release Reveal. The album was nominated for a Grammy for “best recording package.”
In 2003 Coil returned to Atlanta where she began to focus on her artwork. These works are primarily southern in theme and tend to focus on road-side images and signs. Over the past year she has begun to show her work at Atlanta art festivals including Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Virginia Highlands Art Festival, Decatur Arts Festival, Grant Park Summer Shade Festival, and Atlanta Arts Festival.
Coil’s sign series focuses on the signs of the south, both rural and urban. Interested in the ordinary and the simple as objects being worthy of attention, her aim is to capture such imagery in a muted pallet on textured surfaces--right now focusing on southern iconography (primarily signage).
Coil also began teaching art three years ago which has become a continuous source of inspiration and energy.
Sarah Emerson
Sarah Emerson graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in 1997 and went on to complete her Master's Degree at GoldsmithsCollege in London, England. Over the last ten years she has exhibited her paintings in galleries throughout the United States and Europe, including at White Columns, New York, Cosmic Gallery, Paris, and Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT. Emerson recently moved back to Atlanta, Georgia but over the years she has lived in Boston, London, and New York.
In her paintings, Emerson uses the violence and romantic sadness of the natural landscape to provoke a sense of fragility and melancholic instability beneath the surface of the image. She likes to use a variety of images that are beautiful and sad with natural elements that can also be seen to parallel the worst parts of our human animalistic behaviors. Nostalgic and symbolic, Emerson tries to embrace sincerity and ambiguity in times that are hardened by the disintegration of real emotional and literal landscapes. Ferocity and suspense of action are recurrent narratives, suggesting an eerie tension between the subjects amid the collapse of a flattened, abstract background.
Krista Grecco
Krista Grecco’s sculpture has always been about recreating what already exists. In a similar way that topiary, toys and stuffed animals recreate what already exists, her forms and surfaces are edited, exaggerated or simplified to show her point of view. Form is Grecco’s passion and the main focus of her work. Nostalgia is also important but without form, concept is flat. Flesh, folds, fabric and fur lend life to her work.
The women Grecco creates are not anonymous although they believe in keeping secrets and want to appear mysterious. The animals try to act human but just can’t ignore their natural instincts; secrets and mystery elude them. Grecco’s latest series is especially personal, busts based closely but loosely on the women who have shared their love, companionship and knowledge with her. Slowly their secrets unravel in flesh, folds, fabric and fur.
Grecco received her B.F.A. honors from AlfredUniversity and her M.F.A. with a fellowship from The Ohio State University. She joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at GeorgiaStateUniversity in 2007 as a Visiting Instructor. Her other teaching experience includes Kennesaw State University, Denison University, Cleveland Institute of Art, University of Georgia and many others.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArtSaturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website,
www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
Chock Full of Affordable Artincluding Pop-up books, artist cards,
and art books
Presenting new artists in an eclectic exhibit,“Wood, Canvas, and Clay,”
And continuing two exhibits:
Ansel Adams / Bob Kolbrener exhibition
“90 Years in the American West,”
vintage and modern black and white photographs
and
April Street’s “The Wave in My Eyes,”
8th Annual Exhibit of New Paintings
Holiday Open House and Birthday Celebration
During FirstArtSaturday December 6, 6-9 pm
The Arts Company continues its original mission established in 1996 of presenting fresh, original, and contemporary artwork to Nashvillians and visitors alike. The 12th Annual Holiday Arts Market, scheduled during FirstArtSaturday, December 6, 6-9 pm, celebrates the first twelve years of The Arts Company on 5th Avenue of the Arts in downtown Nashville. The gallery will launch the holiday season with a Holiday Open House offering one new eclectic exhibition, one legendary photography exhibition, and a wide variety of affordable artwork including special artist gift cards commissioned for the occasion. The Holiday Arts Market will continue through December 24 during regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm, at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North, 254-2040 or www.theartscompany.com for more information.
About the 12th Annual Holiday Arts Market and Gallery Birthday Celebration
During the holidays, The Arts Company is known for being chock full of original art, special commissions and art-related merchandise designed to offer fresh and affordable alternatives to those seeking original gifts at reasonable prices. This year’s market features special artist holiday cards, pop-up books for children and adults, collectors’ art books, small paintings and sculpture, legendary photography and miscellaneous discounts on selections from the Company archives and merchandise being discontinued. Guests at the open house will receive a special artist thank you gift with every purchase.
Classic holiday cards by museum artists will be complemented by Arts Company frameable artist cards, including John Baeder, Jorge Arrieta, Jonathan Richter, Pam Moxley, and others.
About the December Exhibitions
Two exhibits will continue through December 19:
1) The inaugural exhibit of the national traveling exhibition, “90 Years in the American West,” featuring vintage and modern photographs by Ansel Adams and Bob Kolbrener. (For more information, www.theartscompany.com/press)
2) “The Wave of My Eyes,” a new painting series by popular gallery artist April Street.
A new exhibition curated by gallery associate Brian Downey opens during FirstArtSaturday, December 6 and continues through January 8. The exhibit introduces four new artists toNashville. (For more information, www.theartscompany.com/pres)
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in December 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists and participates with other nearby galleries to promote Art on 5th Avenue of the Arts during FirstArtSaturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, the Company presents a signature series—The Art of Books, a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
See below a press release related to each exhibit.
The Arts Company
Presents
“90 Years in the American West”
Photographs by Ansel Adams
and Bob Kolbrener
Nashville Exhibit is First Stop on National Tour
Opening Artist Reception
During FirstArtSaturday
November 1, 6-9 pm
The Arts Company will launch a national touring exhibition of vintage and modern photographs by Ansel Adams and by Bob Kolbrener, who worked with Mr. Adams in the 1960s. This exhibition is set to open during a special artist reception during FirstArtSaturday, November 1, 6-9 pm.Bob Kolbrener will attend the reception, accompanied by Barry Podgorsky, who represented Mr. Kolbrener in his gallery, SoHo Triad Fine Art , in NYC. The exhibit will continue through December 19 during regular gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm. at 215 Fifth Avenue, North, 254-2040. www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit
This traveling exhibition, 90 YEARS IN THE AMERICAN WEST, includes select vintage and modern prints by Adams from the 30’s and 40’s. Bob Kolbrener’s prints, like Adams’, are gelatin silver and are also made by the artist. The exhibition compares and contrasts the works of two visionary masters, their love and respect for Yosemite and surrounding areas. The Arts Company will inaugurate this traveling exhibition of over 25 vintage and contemporary prints, all for sale. Mr. Kolbrener will be in attendance at the opening reception. Individual Adams and Kolbrener prints will be sold from the exhibition inventory, and viewers and press are encouraged to review the show at www.theartscompany.com. Press images for reproduction are available upon request. Mr. Kolbrener will be available to be interviewed by phone and in person prior to the exhibit.
This exhibit of Adams and Kolbrener photography is notable in a couple of ways—namely, this is the first time the Ansel Adams Gallery has allowed Adams’ photographs to be offered on consignment to other galleries. This concession is due primarily to the long-time professional and personal friendship Bob Kolbrener had with Adams himself and has continued with the Adams family. Secondly, The Arts Company exhibition kicks off a national touring exhibition over the next year that will include other galleries that represent Kolbrener’s photographs, including the Fay Gold Gallery in Atlanta and the Michele Mosko Fine Art Gallery in Denver. The tour will end where it began in the Ansel Adams Gallery in YosemiteNational Park next fall.
About the Artists / Ansel Adams Like many of the legendary photographers of mid-century America, Ansel Adams’s passion for photography began with a Kodak Brownie camera given to him by his parents. That influence, combined with his childhood love of nature that, in his words, was “colored and modulated by the great earth gesture” of the Yosemite Sierra, led to his lifelong involvement with the Sierra Club, a critical element in Adams’ growing and continuing success as a photographer. While Adams is remembered as an environmentalist who championed the landscapes of the west, he is remembered equally as one of the key 20th-century artistic pioneers whose work helped establish photography as a legitimate art form.
Adams’ photographs were not intended as “realistic” documents of nature. In fact, the “zone system” of controlling exposure and development of an image made it possible for photographers to visualize an image in advance, matching that visualization through specific technical systems. He literally “wrote the book”—his ten volume series on the making of photographs--on his system for realizing an artistic vision through technical means. Using his zone system and the techniques of “burning” and “dodging” to alter the photograph, Adams gave photographic artists the ability to create images rather than just record subject matter.
Adams was sought out as a photographic consultant as well as an aesthetic pioneer and artist. His lifelong close friends and collaborators were among the key figures of art photography in the mid-20th century, including Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz gave Adams a one-man show at his famed An American Place gallery in NYC in 1936. Adams’ commitment to photography as a fine art led him to a lifelong friendship and partnership with Nancy and Beaumont Newhall. Heassisted them in establishing the first museum department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
About the Artists / Bob Kolbrener 'I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us' - Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams’ images of YosemiteNational Park and the Great American West taken from 1916 forward have literally inspired photographers to follow in his footsteps.One of the most notable is Bob Kolbrener, whose visit to the Ansel Adams Gallery in 1968 was a turning point for him. Over the next ten (10) years the young photographer advanced from a student in 1969, to becoming a teacher with Ansel Adams at his Yosemite workshops.
Today, Bob Kolbrener is known as the photographer of the American West, and his work, like Adams, stands out above others. This disciplined artist spends over three (3) months each year in the Great American West focusing his camera on the changing landscape, and the balance of his time printing beautiful works as limited edition gelatin silver prints. Kolbrener writes about his specialized photographs: “I have always responded to the grand, ephemeral gestures of Nature. When there is a lightning, fog or winter storm, I am alive with emotion.Through the teachings and inspiration of Ansel Adams I have been able to direct this energy to the making of exciting photographs.”
Kolbrener is quick to point out that there is no use of computers or multiple imagery, and no print or negative enhancement such as bleaching or intensification in his photographs. He wants it understood that all of his photographs “are made in the Great American West using 2 ¼” and 8” x 10” cameras. I print up to 40” x 50” the ‘old fashioned way,’ using fiber based paper, tray processing and selenium toner. My goal is to produce prints which truly celebrate those most exciting photographic moments!”
The Art of Books / Adams and Kolbrener
The November edition of The Art of Books—a monthly showcase of vintage and contemporary books related to the arts—features a selection of Ansel Adams’ books, as well as a special edition of Bob Kobrener’s book of his photographs.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, the Company produces the monthly signature series—The Art of Books, a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
Presents
April Street’s 8th Annual Exhibition
of New Paintings
“The Wave of My Eyes”
Opening with a reception for the artist
FirstArtSaturday, November 1, 2008, 6-9 pm
The exhibit will be featured at Artrageous, November 8
Exhibit will continue through December 19, 2008
The Arts Company proudly presents the 8th Annual Exhibition of New Paintings by April Street, opening with a reception for the artist during FirstArtSaturday, November 1, 2008, 6-9 pm at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. The exhibit will be featured at the annual Artrageous event, and will continue through December 19, during regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm. For information, 254-2040 or www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit
Since her first exhibition at The Arts Company in 2000, April Street has been one of the gallery’s most successful and prolific artists. Her work has always been a perfect fit for the gallery’s concept of presenting fresh, original, contemporary artwork. Street’s relentless work ethic drives her to produce a completely original exhibition of work each year, sometimes figurative, sometimes abstract, and often a combination of the two.
About the Artist and Artwork / April Street
The 2008 installation of April Street’s painting exhibition leans toward abstract, in themes that will be familiar, yet brand new to those who are familiar with her work. Her new paintings are lyrical and poetic, linked together in a combination of perspectives. The movement, shapes, and colors in the canvases suggest imaginative landscapes involving water, flowers, and plants. Within each canvas and among the canvases are suggestions of stories or narratives being formed.
“Typically, Street works in large scale. This year’s body of work is more medium scale. The work exudes energy, excitement and elegance in Street’s inimitable style,” according to Anne Brown of The Arts Company, continuing that “April’s work is always about evoking beauty through complex patterns and designs that turn out to be lively and soothing at the same time.”
April Street lives and works in Los Angeles CA and Bristol TN. She has exhibited her paintings and sculptures in High Energy Constructs Gallery in Chinatown, Los Angeles, Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, CA, The Arts Company Nashville, TN, ChicagoIL and Austin TX. As well, Street’s collaborative video work, "Imaging Appalachia, Virtual View," received a NEA Project Grant. Street's work has been
featured and reviewed in prominent publications recently such as: The L A Weekly, art ltd. West Coast Art and Design, Artillery Magazine, New York /Los Angeles, New Art Examiner/Chicago, A! Magazine, and a feature cover article in Nashville Arts Magazine in 2007. Street's work will be featured in NY Arts Magazine's January issue.
Street has curated national exhibitions including the Virginia Museum Affiliate, WilliamKingArtCenter’s “The Human Habit” benefiting breast cancer research. She is also the developer of Southwest Virginia's first permanent sculpture garden and outdoor sculpture competition, "Blurring the Lines." April Street's educational background includes: The Art Institute of Chicago, East Tennessee State University (BFA), and bronze casting and art history in Italy.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArtSaturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, the Company produces the monthly signature series—The Art of Books, a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
Hosts
“A Conversation with Neil Baldwin:
The Future and Recent Past of Books”
5-6:30, Saturday, October 11, 2008
Conversation begins at 5:30 / Book-signing at 6:00
Part of The Art of Books series
At The Arts Company
215 Fifth Avenue, North
The Arts Company salutes the Southern Festival of Books with a special edition of the gallery’s ongoing series, The Art of Books, featuring “A Conversation with Neil Baldwin: The Future and Recent Past of Books.”Neil Baldwin is a highly-regarded biographer, critically-acclaimed author and Founding Executive Director for the National Book Foundation, sponsor of the prestigious National Book Awards.
In September, 2006, Baldwin joined the faculty of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at MontclairStateUniversity in New Jersey, where he serves as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of History. He is also co-director of the NYU Biography Seminar, serves on the program committee for the 2008 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, and is a member of the Writers Guild of America (East), the National Arts Club literary committee, and PEN American Center.
Dr. Baldwin will be signing books following his remarks, including: Man Ray: American Artist; To All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams, Doctor Poet; Edison: Inventing the Century; and American Revelation: Ten Ideas That Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War.
Baldwin is uniquely qualified to speak to the state of books in our culture—the current status as well as the future of books in a digital age. A monograph of his remarks will be published by The Arts Company, and signed copies will be available to those attending soon after the event. The Art of Books series at The Arts Company is a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Arts Company
Presents
“The Art of Politics 2008”
Illustrations and Sculpture by Robert Grossman
Celebrating Town Hall Presidential Debate 08
Hosted by BelmontUniversity
Exhibit guest curator: Metro Councilman Ronnie Steine
Featuring limited edition signed debate 08 artist posters
By Robert Grossman and Jorge Arrieta
commemorating this historic debate
Opening Artist Reception
During FirstArtSaturday
October 4, 6-9 pm
Exhibit continues through October 25
“The Art of Politics 2008” is scheduled to open at The Arts Company October 4, 6-9:00 pm, during the monthly FirstArtSaturday exhibit, headlined by the recent iconic artwork of legendary New York illustrator/sculptor Robert Grossman, whose political and satirical works appear frequently in the The New York Times, New York Observer, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and other major mainstream publications. Celebrating the town hall presidential debate at BelmontUniversity, this exhibit will feature recently created satirical illustrations and sculptures of the old and new contenders facing off in the current presidential election. The iconic images will include Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and the debut of Sarah Palin. Continuing through October 25, during regular gallery hours at 215 Fifth Avenue, North, 10-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday.For additional information:254-2040 or www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit / The Art of Politics
“The Art of Politics” brings together the legendary NY-based political satirist, Robert Grossman, with the curatorial skills of local art collector andMetro Councilman Ronnie Steine, an avid collector of art related to politics.The exhibit also includes original political artwork and signed limited edition hand-screened posters by Nashville-based Jorge Arrieta; and a series of “GET OUT THE VOTE” paintings by Dallas-basedJonathon Kimbrell, featuring comic book icons.
Special Commissions/ Artists to Attend Reception
The Town Hall Presidential Debate to be hosted by BelmontUniversity in October lends a historic dimension to “The Arts of Politics” exhibit.With that in mind, The Arts Company has commissioned Robert Grossman to produce a historic limited edition signed poster commemorating the occasion of the Nashville presidential debate.The Arts Company has also commissioned Jorge Arrieta to produce four different limited edition posters and one t-shirt for the occasion.These special commissions will be unveiled as part of the artists reception on October 4 at The Arts Company. Both Grossman and Arrieta and guest curator Ronnie Steine will attend the reception.
About the Artists / Artwork
Robert Grossman
In the past few months, Robert Grossman has developed a series of political cartoons called “O-ManLand” for The Nation and the NY Observer, pointing to the cultural wars prevalent in the current national presidential campaign.Steven Heller, long-time illustration editor for the NY Times Book Review, noted recently, “In his 40-plus year career as a cartoonist, illustrator, sculptor and animator Robert Grossman has created numerous political comic strips for mainstream and alternative magazines. These strips acerbically address issues of the day, most often before they are on the popular culture radar screen.”A few of the originals of these strips will be included in this exhibit, as well as other political illustrations that focus on the cultural wars in this year’s contentious campaign.
Robert Grossman has produced cover illustrations for more than 500 issues of national magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic. Today his work can be seen regularly in The Nation, The New York Times, Fortune, and The New York Observer. During the 1980s, he produced a number of animated television commercials. Mr. Grossman is an Academy Award nominee in the category of Short Animated Film. As a native of New York City, Mr. Grossman’s attended public schools in Brooklyn and art classes at The Museum of Modern Art. He graduated from Yale, and after a brief stint as an assistant to New Yorker art director James Geraghty, he launched his career as a freelance illustrator and cartoonist. In addition to his Nashville-based photographer daughter Leila, Mr. Grossman has three other children: a painter, an actor, and a writer.
Jorge Arrieta
Jorge Arrieta is a Nashville-based artist who works with different mediums, including film.He recently debuted his show, Standing on a Whale, a 55-piece art and 28-minute film exhibition at the historic Neuhoff in Nashville.The film has gone on to become one of the official selections of seven film festivals, plus winning “Best Experimental” at the Festivus Film Festival in Denver, the Tupelo Film Festival in Mississippi and the Reel HeArt International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.Arrieta completed his bachelor of fine arts in design communications at BelmontUniversity in 1999.He is a Nashville-based freelance web and graphic designer who works mainly with local musicians.He is currently working on an innovative and controversial new film and art project—a social commentary—to be released in a few months.
Jonathon Kimbrell
Jonathon Kimbrell has turned his penchant for comic book heroes into a platform for getting out the vote in the current historic presidential campaign.Kimbrell has contributed new paintings to this exhibit as a timely extension of an earlier exhibit this year at The Arts Company.
The Arts Companypresents
Three Generations of Nashville Photographers:
Ed Clark, Bob Schatz, And introducing Greg Miller
During FirstArtSaturday Opening Reception, September 6, 6-9 pm
The Arts Company September exhibition will feature “Three Generations of Nashville Photographers:Ed Clark, Bob Schatz, and Introducing Greg Miller,” scheduled to open to the public during the popular FirstArtSaturday event, September 6, 6-9 pm.The exhibit will feature some of the remaining signed photographs from Ed Clark’s personal collection;new photographs by Bob Schatz from his Southern writers series; and introducing Greg Miller, Nashville native and current recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography.The exhibit will continue through September 20 at The Arts Company, 215 Fifth Avenue, North, during regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm.For information, call 254-2040 or check online at www.theartscompany.com.
About the Exhibit
Occasionally, the stars align to create an exhibit that is personal to artists and to their hometown.The September exhibit at The Arts Company is such an exhibit. There is much to learn from each of these photographers.Together, it’s a rare opportunity to see part of the history of Nashville and Nashville artists unfold. Ed Clarkbegan his photography career with The Tennessean in the 1930s.He is considered as one of Nashville’s godfathers of excellence in photography. Bob Schatz began his career in photography in the 1970s.His success as a commercial and fine art photographer, particularly his iconic photographs of Nashville, have been well-documented in magazines, books, and exhibits where his work has appeared for some three decades.Schatz met and photographed Ed Clark when Ed Clark returned to Nashville in the late 1980s.Greg Miller was Schatz’s assistant during Miller’s last two years in high school in Nashville.He began his career as a commercial photographer when he left Nashville in the late 1980s for college in New York.Since the mid-1990s, his work has appeared in major publications, which led to the Guggenheim Award he has received this year for his fine art photography.He is in Nashville this summer working on his Guggenheim project.The exhibit will continue through September 20, with a FirstArtSaturday reception scheduled for Saturday, September 6, 6-9 pm.
About the Artist
Ed Clark (1912-2000), a Nashville native who was a Tennessean photographer in the 1930s and became one of the legendary LIFE Magazine photographers in the heyday of classic photojournalists, will need no introduction to many Nashvillians.Selected signed photographs from his personal collection will be featured in this exhibit, with special emphasis on Tennessee subjects.Ed Clark was literally a master of defining moments.One of the features of this exhibit is 14 large contact sheets of photographs he took before, during, and after performances at the Opry at the Ryman, July 20, 1946.This one-day series is a masterpiece of photojournalism by one of the masters of photojournalism.
Bob Schatz, also a Nashville native and a leading commercial and fine art photographer, will be presenting a select group of his recent photographs of Southern writers’ homes—including William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O’Connor, and Carl Sandburg.These photographs explore intimate spaces of southern writers, spaces Schatz was drawn to because they resurrected memories of his own southern upbringing in Nashville.He began the series in 2007 when he was completing work for his book on Asheville, North Carolina.He started with the homes of Thomas Wolfe and Carl Sandburg, and has expanded to other southern writers homes since then.These photographs were made with a hand-held camera and with available light.From his perspective, the camera captures and romanticizes the light, and the magic is how it is put on paper. In taking the photograph and preparing the image for printing, Schatz is in charge of the entire process.He presented some of these photographs in a series called “Inspirational Spaces” at the Metro Public Library in 2007.
Greg Miller will be introduced in an inaugural exhibit for his hometown with images from his current photographic series of Nashville, as well as his ongoing series of Ash Wednesday. Once Miller switched to a large format 8 x 10 view camera on a tripod in 1997, his photographic world changed.The large camera forced him to come in close to his subjects and interact with them.He began to tell stories—literally, to create fictions about the people he encountered.He often directs complete strangers, members of the general public as if they were actors in a film or play.No matter the subject of his photographs, they all refer ultimately to his recurring themes of melancholia, isolation and solitude—but retaining elements of humor and tenderness.
The Art of Books
The Art of Books presentation accompanying the September photography exhibit will feature classic and current photography books of special interest to the work of the photographers in the exhibit.A LIFE publication that includes some of Ed Clark’s iconic images, signed by Ed Clark, will be given as a gift for the first five purchases of his photographs.Books selected by Greg Miller as the work of his photographic mentors will be available.Several published books of Bob Schatz photographs will be signed and available as well.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for contemporary and vintage books related to the arts.
The Arts Company occasionally revives the Salon Saturday tradition at the gallery, presenting special occasions for conversations between artists and guests. Such events are presented in cooperation with other nearby galleries participating in Art on Fifth Avenue. Such an occasion is scheduled for Saturday, August 23, 6-9 pm.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
Presents The 12th Annual Avant-Garage Sale
Featuring
Unique and Original Art,
Furniture, Books and More from
The Arts Company Gallery Archives
Special Offer:
The Arts Company will pay the sales tax
for all sales in the gallery from August 2-15
The Arts Company continues one of its most popular annual traditions—the 12th Annual Avant-Garage Sale, featuring original artwork, furniture, books and more from gallery archives and other collections. Opening during FirstArtSaturday, August 2, 6-9 p.m., the sale runs for two weeks only—through August 15, with a new feature added this year. For all items purchased in the gallery from August 2-15, The Arts Company will pay the sales tax. The garage sale, along with other continuing exhibits and new artwork, continues through August 15 during regular gallery hours, 10-5 pm Tuesday through Saturday, at 215 Fifth Avenue, North.
About the 12th Annual Avant-Garage Sale
This special annual exhibit is all about finding art-related treasures from gallery archives and other collections. This year adds a special dimension for a particular reason. The Arts Company will pay the sales tax for every sale, whether part of the sale or from the regular art and book inventories. The idea is to relieve some of the economic stress we are all feeling at this time. It’s all about giving our customers and friends, new and old, a break and a thank you for twelve years of running an art business in the middle of downtown Nashville.
Come join us and take your pick. We’ll have cool refreshments and the coolest art, books, furniture, props, design, posters—you name it. Even the most avid connoisseurs will be surprised by some of the items in this year’s collection.
About the Tax Break for All Gallery Sales from August 2-August 15
Even the newest art inventories in the gallery will be included in the festivities. The Arts Company will pay the tax on every item purchased in the gallery from August 2-August 15—from books to paintings to sculpture to vintage furniture and photography.
Continuing Exhibits in the Galleries Include:
“50 Years of Fresh Art”—the annual Brother Mel exhibition celebrating his 80th birthday, his 60 years as a Marianist monk, his 50 years as an artist, and his 10th annual exhibition at The Arts Company..
“Fresh Picks”—paintings by Michele Allen, Louis Recchia, and Jonathon Kimbrell; and photography by Pam Moxley,
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be an arts cornerstone in downtown Nashville and a prime destination for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts.
The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery featuring an extensive inventory of artwork and books and upstairs galleries designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
Anne Brown, Owner & Director
215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North
Nashville, TN 37219
615-254-2040
The Arts Company
Presents
The 12th Annual Avant-Garage Sale
Featuring
Unique and Original Art,
Furniture, Books and More from
The Arts Company Gallery Archives
Special Offer:
The Arts Company
will pay the sales tax
for all sales in the gallery
from August 2-15
All exhibits will continue through August 15
Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
The Arts Company continues
“Brother Mel: 50 Years of Fresh Art,”
celebrating 50 years of making art
continuing through August 15 and
“Fresh Picks”
previewing new artwork
and artists every week through August 15
All exhibits will continue through August 15
Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
at
THE ARTS COMPANY
215 Fifth Avenue, North 615-254-2040
The Arts Company celebrates the July 4th weekend opening during FirstArtSaturday, July 5, 6-9 pm, by continuing “Brother Mel Meyer: 50 Years of Fresh Art,” the 10th annual showcase of the artwork of Brother Mel on the occasion of the artist’s 80th birthday; and with new artwork added throughout the summer months—plus “Fresh Picks,” a gallery showcase featuring new artwork and new artists every week in July, introducing new gallery artists—Louis Recchia, Pam Moxley, and Michele Allen, as well as Jonathan Kimbrell. The exhibits will continue through August 15 during regular gallery hours, 10-9 pm, Tuesday-Saturday, at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. For information, call 615-254-2040.
About the July “Fresh Picks” Exhibit
Summer at The Arts Company is always about affordable art, cold lemonade, Brother Mel’s annual showcase of new artwork, fresh new art from gallery artists, and introducing new artists to the gallery. The backdrop for this July is the continuing exhibit of Brother Mel’s “50 Years of Fresh Art.” In addition, this year’s headliners range from plein air landscape paintings to comic superstars to polished oil paintings that give a contemporary touch to modern masters to bringing stylized French landscapes to life with vivid colors. Fresh work from all artists will be added each week in July. All together, this is a selection of summer fresh artwork suitable for every palate, and affordable for novices and collectors alike.
About the Continuing Brother Mel Exhibit
The scope of this year’s 10th annual exhibit of Brother Mel’s artwork warrants more time and space than the normal monthly exhibit periods. Therefore, his exhibit is scheduled for the summer months at The Arts Company and other downtown locations, including the Pinnacle Financial Center, the Sommet Center, KVBPR, and the Nashville City Center. Each location features different elements of Brother Mel’s artwork—from paintings, watercolors, large and small steel sculpture, hand made paper, and more.
About the Artists & Artwork
Introducing New Gallery Artists: Artists being introduced to the summer “Fresh Picks” showcase of new artwork include: Michele Allen, a French native and now a Tennessee resident, remembers buildings and flowers of the French landscape in bold modern stylized blocks of color; Louis Recchia, a Denver-based artist, bringing a contemporary style to modern masters, as well as some canvases that are pop art in his distinctive style; and Pam Moxley, an Atlanta-based artist presenting a new approach to photography, combining film with an array of new techniques. In addition, super heroes from the comics urging Americans to vote are the latest pop art paintings to be presented by gallery artist Jonathon Kimbrell, a Dallas-based artist;
Brother Mel: 50 Years of Fresh Art continues….
Brother Mel is an artist who always surprises with inventive artwork, from gutsy to elegant to whimsical…and always with intuitive insight and flawless craftsmanship. He is an unusually prolific artist who works in his studio six days a week, 52 weeks a year. He has outfitted chapels, buildings, parks, homes and backyards—from frescoes to three-story steel sculptures to large-scale abstract paintings to contemporary stained glass. This year’s 10th annual exhibition at The Arts Company reflects on his 50 years of producing fresh art, featuring sculpture, glass, paintings on canvas and paper, handmade paper, sculptural bowls, furniture, and his signature contemporary religious icons.
The Art of Books / Ju1y 2008
The July edition of The Art of Books, the newest signature monthly program at The Arts Company, will focus on the Americana series of books illustrated by Sam Fink, including the U.S. Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and the Declaration of Independence. The books are a special order signed by Mr. Fink, including a limited edition boxed set of his illustrations of the Constitution. In addition, there are signed copies of his illustrated version of Exodus.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on FirstArtSaturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
presents
“Brother Mel: 50 Years of Fresh Art,”
celebrating 50 years of making art
and his 80th birthday
Meet Brother Mel at his 80th birthday party
at The Arts Company
during FirstArtSaturday June 7, 6-9pm
Brother Mel exhibits will be presented in other locations downtown
and will continue through August 15
Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
The Arts Company will present “Brother Mel: 50 Years of Fresh Art,” an exhibit celebrating Brother Mel’s 80th birthday, his 60 years as a Marianist monk and his 50 years as a working artist, opening during FirstArtSaturday, June 7, 6-9 pm. This marks the 10th annual exhibition of Brother Mel’s artwork at The Arts Company, and will launch a year-long series of retrospective exhibits, beginning in Nashville and continuing in St. Louis and beyond. Each exhibit is designed to showcase Brother Mel’s full range of work—from frescoes to glass to large and small steel sculpture to abstract paintings and more. Brother Mel will attend the exhibit opening at The Arts Company as part of his 80th birthday celebration during the FirstArtSaturday reception, continuing in the Company location through August 15 during regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. For information, www.theartscompany.com, or call 615-254-2040.
About the June-August 2008 Brother Mel Exhibit
The scope of this year’s 10th annual exhibit of Brother Mel’s artwork, including a digital preview of a book in progress on the life and artwork of Brother Mel, warrants more time and space than the normal monthly exhibit periods. Therefore, the exhibit is scheduled for three months at The Arts Company and other downtown locations, including the Pinnacle Financial Center, the Sommet Center, KVBPR, and the Nashville City Center. Each location will feature different elements of Brother Mel’s artwork.
About the Artwork
Brother Mel is an artist who always surprises with inventive artwork, from gutsy to elegant to whimsical…and always with intuitive insight and flawless craftsmanship. He is an unusually prolific artist who works in his studio six days a week, 52 weeks a year. He has outfitted chapels, buildings, parks, homes and backyards—from frescoes to three-story steel sculptures to large-scale abstract paintings to contemporary stained glass. Over the years, he has had commissions from corporations, hotels, hospitals, buildings, parks, and other public spaces, as well as individuals. The Nashville exhibits will feature sculpture, frescoes, glass, paintings on canvas and paper, handmade paper, sculptural bowls, furniture, and his signature contemporary religious icons.
About the Artist / Brother Mel Myer, s.m.
Brother Mel the artist stems from the fact that he was first Brother Mel the monk. They are one and the same. He became a member of the Marianist order, a Catholic community of brothers, just out of high school in 1942. He attended the University of Dayton for his bachelor’s degree and later to Notre Dame for a master’s degree in art, which included also a year of traveling 14,000 miles on a moped to visit cathedrals, shrines and museums throughout Europe, and study with 20th century masters of frescoes, stained glass and sculpture. After teaching English and art in some of the Marianist schools, he was given the opportunity to develop a studio to work full time as an artist. He was given no constraints, no particular demands, other than to fulfill his spiritual vows as he saw fit as a working artist. This was a groundbreaking idea in the 1960s of what vocational choices might be appropriate for a monk. Much of his work shows no specific signs as being religious art. However, when asked, Brother Mel will always reply, “All of my work is religious.” Truly, the monk and the artist are one and the same. What you see is what you get—the art speaks for itself.
Brother Mel set out full steam 50 years ago working 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year as an artist. That, combined with decades of annual painting and sketching trips world-wide and visits to museums, resulted in a prolific outpouring of artwork that continues unabated to the present time on the occasion of his 80th birthday. His work, if anything, has become over time more inventive and fresh, both in ideas and in the materials he works with.
The Art of Books / June 2008 A digital preview of a book in progress about the life and artwork of Brother Mel will be featured as the highlight for the June edition of The Art of Book series at The Arts Company. The book is being developed to document and showcase the wide range and substance of the artwork produced by this singular artist. In addition, there will be books by artists selected by Brother Mel as his artistic mentors—from Jean Charlot and Ivan Mestrovich to Alexander Calder, Van Gogh, David Smith, Frank Gehry and Daniel Liebskind.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday / June 2008
at
The Arts Company
presents
“Brother Mel: 50 Years of Fresh Art,”
celebrating 50 years of making art
and his 80th birthday
Brother Mel exhibits will be presented in other locations downtown
And will continue through August 15
Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
Exhibition Opening Reception and 80th Birthday Party for Brother Mel
June 7, 6-9 pm
Gallery open 10 am until 9 pm
Exhibit continues through August 15
during regular gallery hours: 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday
The Arts Company
presents
“1st Day in Purgatory,” a collaborative exhibit,
paintings by Jonathan Richter
writing by Doug McKelvey
also continuing two exhibits “Still Life for the 21st Century,”
Oil on canvas by Aaron Morgan Brown
and “On the Road with Rod Daniel,”
Black and white photography by Rod Daniel
plus The Art of Books, the new monthly signature series, Featuring “1st Day in Purgatory” by Richter & McKelvey
Meet Jonathan Richter, Doug McKelvey, and Rod Daniel during the FirstArtSaturday opening reception, May 3, 6-9 pm
Exhibits continue through May23
The Arts Company exhibition for FirstArtSaturday on May 3 features both painting and writing—a collaboration between painter and animator Jonathan Richter and writer/songwriter Doug McKelvey, in an exhibit titled “1st Day in Purgatory.” An opening reception to meet the artists and have them sign their exhibit-related book is scheduled for May 3, 6-9 pm during the popular First Saturday event. The exhibit will continue through May 23 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm Tuesday-Saturday, at 215 Fifth Avenue, North, www.theartscompany.com, or call 254-2040 for information.
The tie-in with the Company’s newest signature monthly series, The Art of Books, featuring vintage and contemporary art books, is particularly appropriate for the May exhibit. Along with the original paintings and captions, an art book version of the entire “1st Day in Purgatory” show will be available for purchase.
Two additional exhibits—paintings by Aaron Brown, “Still Life for the 21st Century,” and photography by Rod Daniel, “On the Road with Rod Daniel” will continue through May 23, during regular gallery hours. Additional information about the continuing Aaron Brown and Rod Daniel exhibits and the artists can be found at www.theartscompany.com/press.
About the May 2008 Collaborative Exhibit
The May exhibition at The Arts Company is about artistic imagination. Richter is known as Nashville’s own Toulouse-Lautrec. He plies his craft in public places, using a limited palette and mechanistically consuming one beer per finished portrait. Douglas McKelvey wrestles with each of the resulting paintings to distill their essence into a line or two of poetic prose. The featured book in the Company’s The Art of Book series will be the Richter-McKelvey art book of the images in the exhibit.
About the Artwork
Jonathan Richter and Doug McKelvey have been working for months to produce a collaborative project that consists of a series of 50+ new small paintings, each with a line or two of poetic prose attached as part of an imaginative narrative of 50 subjects in the first moments or days after their deaths. Richter contends that his portraits have no meaning whatsoever beyond being studies; but Douglas insists they do have meaning. Once his words are attached to each piece both artists contend that “between randomness and order…people find surprising connections with the portraits.”
About the Artists / Jonathan Richter & Douglas Kaine McKelve
Jonathan Richter, painter and animator, debuted his work at The Arts Company in November 2005. To capture the spontaneity of the moment and the images of the people interacting, he experiments with color, form and concept. His paintings, like those of Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Glackens, are created in bustling peopled places rather than in sterile studios. Considering himself to be a public space painter, Jonathan was trained in fine art, illustration and animation at Otis Parsons in Los Angeles. Jonathan followed his painterly path to Nashville where he discovered the city’s most populous places—the sidewalks, the watering holes, the juke joints and diners—an abundant inspiration for his spontaneous portraitures.
The remote descendent of Scottish horse-thieving ancestors, Douglas Kaine McKelvey has already bested the dubious achievements of his predecessors by penning four published books, crafting lyrics for more than 140 songs recorded by a variety of artists, and engaging in numerous other professional writing type endeavors. Douglas is currently an artist-in-residence with Orbit Media Group, and a lyricist with Simpleville Music. His favorite dance move is "The Aluminum Biscuit" and his favorite facial expression is the "cool, detached stare."
The Art of Books for March 2008 The featured book for The Arts Company May edition of The Art of Books series will be the art book version of the Richter-McKelvey exhibit of “1st Day in Purgatory.” In addition, books of other artists identified as mentors by this month’s exhibiting artists, from Toulouse-Lautrec to poetry to illustration, will be included.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday / May 3, 2008
at The Arts Company
Presenting “1st Day in Purgatory,” A Collaborative Exhibit.
Paintings by Jonathan Richter
Writing by Douglas McKelvey
And Continuing
Paintings by Aaron Brown And
Photography by Rod Daniel
+
“The Art of Books,”
A monthly signature series of new and vintage art books
Book signing by Richter and McKelvey
Exhibition Opening Reception for Artists
Jonathan Richter, Douglas McKelvey, and Rod Daniel
May 3, 6-9 pm
Gallery open 10 am until 9 pm
Exhibit continues through May 23
The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday
Presents
“Still Life for the 21st Century”
oil on canvas by Aaron Morgan Brown &
“On the Road with Rod Daniel”
Black & White Photography by Rod Daniel
Meet Rod Daniel
April 5, 2008, 6-9 pm
During FirstArtSaturday
Also previewing the Nashville Film Festival
and continuing The Art of Books, the new monthly signature series
Featuring new and vintage art books
Exhibits continue through May 23
During regular gallery hours, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
The Arts Company will introduce two new artists to Nashville—Aaron Morgan Brown, “Still Life for the 21st Century,” oil on canvas, andRod Daniel, “On the Road with Rod Daniel,” black and white photography—during the FirstArtSaturday reception April 5, 6-9 pm at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. The two exhibits will continue through May 23 during regular gallery hours, 10-5 pm Tuesday-Saturday. The Company’s new signature series, The Art of Books, will feature books of art and photography of artistic mentors identified by the two featured artists, as well as other exceptional art books. In addition, The Arts Company is hosting a preview of the Nashville Film Festival.
About the April 2008 Exhibition These two exhibits match perfectly one of the primary goals of The Arts Company—that is, to introduce exciting and successful new artistic talent to Nashville audiences as often as possible. Each of these artists has a lengthy portfolio of accomplishments and acclaim in their fields. The medium of choice for Aaron Morgan Brown has always been oil on canvas. For Rod Daniel, the medium of choice has long been black and white photography. From these two very different mediums, these two artists—each with contemporary mindsets and with a broad knowledge of the changes history and circumstance bring to our culture—offer rich new visual insights into the new world of the 21st century. The Art of Books will reflect the interests of both artists by featuring new and vintage books of artwork and ideas identified by each artist as influencing their artistic development. The Company will also host a Nashville Film Festival preview during the FirstArtSaturday reception, 6-9 pm, April 5.
About the Artists and Artwork
Aaron Morgan Brown / “Still Life for the 21st Century”
A series of figurative paintings, oil on canvas The artwork: The elements in Aaron Brown’s paintings are always individually recognizable. On first look, it is easy to believe that these paintings make sense, that you can see what they’re about. There are real people in real places doing real things. But very quickly the viewer sees that they are not narratives, nor are they traditional still lifes or landscapes. In a very real sense, he brings figurative action, movement and object placement to a standstill—creating a contemporary still life of various actions in progress, there to be looked at again and again. Aaron’s advice is that it is “helpful to think of my work as a crossroads, a meeting place for elements that are traveling in different directions, at different speeds.” According to him, “the result is a painting.” Whether the painting is “a dance of seven veils, or a car wreck depends on the viewer, and the nature of the elements.” As the painter, Aaron says the elements he includes in each painting are “brought together by chance, circumstance, or design.”
According to Aaron, “Generally, there is an air of mystery or expectation in my work. I want to suggest, rather than illustrate, a world where all things are connected and informed by an invisible cosmic presence…I believe that a sense of mystery is something that can be enjoyed for its own sake, rather than something that needs to be decoded or solved in order to be meaningful.” As a result, the paintings are full of contemporary topical objects, placements, and suggestions with which contemporary viewers are familiar, but he organizes and presents the information with classical painterly skill.
The artist: Aaron Morgan Brown, a Kansas native, has a wide ranging background in the arts, including painting, music, and theatre. Both of his parents are artists. His wife Ann Piper is a tenured painting professor and artist. He earned his BFA from the University of Kansas, MFA from Syracuse University, graduating with honors from both institutions. He has studied with many notable teachers with national reputations, including the late realist painter Robert Brawley, pop artist Roger Shimomura, and figurative painter Jerome Witkin. At Syracuse University, he was chosen from among hundreds of applicants in every department to receive a coveted third year fellowship.
He is the recipient of numerous other honors and awards, including a Pollock-Krasner grant in 2005. In 2003, he was made an honorary alumnus of the Roswell Artist-In-Residence program and his work was added to the collection of the Anderson Museum, after spending the year in Roswell during his wife's residency. His work hangs in many private collections nationwide, and several corporate and university collections.
Rod Daniel / “On the Road with Rod Daniel”
A limited-edition series of black and white photography
The artwork: Since his youth, Rod Daniel has been taking and printing black and white photographs. It wasn’t until he began to travel the quiet back roads of America on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that the combination of self-sufficiency and isolation that he felt was met in the landscape he found along the way.
The strong, solid and singular images in his photography confront us foremost with an immensely intimate sense of place. The impact of the constancy between subject and space, the feel-it-on-your-skin use of light, and his full frame approach enable us to experience a sense of joy that comes from the recognition of the importance of seemingly insignificant objects. These become, through the eyes of Rod Daniel, significant subjects through which we might discover a shared and common connection.
The artist: Rod Daniel, a Nashville native and graduate of Vanderbilt University, has returned to Nashville following his 25 years as a successful Hollywood director. Following his time in Vietnam as an army lieutenant, he began as a television advertising producer and commercial director in Nashville, then Atlanta, and then Chicago. His Hollywood career began in 1978 when he joined WKRP in Cincinnati as a director. From there, the list of Hollywood credits is long, with television shows from Newhartto Magnum P.I. to Everybody Loves Raymond to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. His theatrical releases include Beethoven's Second and Teen Wolf. as well as many other episodes for television and additional theatrical film credits. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
He has been actively engaged in developing his fine art photography portfolio over the last fifteen years, combining his motorcycle travels with photography on the road.
Preview of the 2008 Nashville Film Festival
The Arts Company will host a preview to introduce the Nashville Film Festival line-up for 2008. The gallery will highlight the film work and acclaimed autobiography of Patricia Neal, this year’s recipient of NaFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Festival officials will be on hand to offer advance tickets.
The Art of Books for April 2008
The Arts Company continues the new monthly series, The Art of Books, showcasing new and vintage books related to the arts as a complement to the Company inventories and exhibitions. For the April exhibits, the Company has asked the two exhibiting artists to identify artistic mentors who have influenced their work. In addition, there will be other new and vintage art books available both upstairs and downstairs. This new book series is intended as a destination for exchange of information and ideas related to The Art of Books.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday / April 5, 2008
at
The Arts Company
Introducing two new artists:
Aaron Morgan Brown
oil on canvas
“Still Life for the 21st Century”
& Rod Daniel
Black and white photography
“On the Road with Rod Daniel”
Meet Rod Daniel
Exhibition Opening Reception
April 5, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10 am until 9 pm
Exhibits continue through May 23
Also previewing The 2008 Nashville Film Festival
And Continuing
“The Art of Books,”
A monthly signature series of new and vintage art books,
Featuring artistic mentors of featured artists
The Arts Company presents Works in Progress
New clay sculpture by Nelson Grice Contemporary landscape photography by Hollis Bennett Hand-painted photography by Kimiko And introducing an inaugural exhibit of paintings by Calvin Morton
Plus The Art of Books, the new monthly signature series
Featuring new and vintage art books
Meet all of the featured artists during the FirstArtSaturday opening reception, March 1, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM
Exhibits continue through March 28
Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm
The Arts Company will present “Works in Progress,” featuring four different artists—Nelson Grice, clay sculpture; Hollis Bennett, contemporary landscape photography; Kimiko, hand-painted photography; and introducing Calvin Morton, painter—all scheduled to attend the opening reception during FirstArtSaturday, March 1, 6-9 pm. The exhibits continue through March 28 during regular gallery hours, 10-5 pm, Tuesday-Saturday at The Arts Company, 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.The Art of Books, the Company’s newest signature series, will feature new and vintage books selected for the occasion. For more information, call 254-2040 or check the website at www.theartscompany.com.
About the March 2008 Exhibition
The Arts Company has had a decade-old tradition of presenting new artists and new artwork. The March exhibit, “Works in Progress” is all about what four particular artists are working on at this time—in sculpture, photography and painting—as they each continue to develop a body of work that outlines their particular interests. Two of the artists—Hollis Bennett and Kimiko—have been featured in Company shows before; and Nelson Grice has had various pieces in the gallery on occasion. However, this time, their exhibits will be more expansive to indicate the directions in which they are headed. This exhibit will be a first gallery exhibit for Calvin Morton, who is a recent college art graduate with a series of work that connects Tennessee with global issues, all in the language of a painter. “The Art of Books,” the Company’s newest signature series that presents new and vintage art books, will feature books related to the interests of The Arts Company clients.
About the Artists and Artwork
Nelson Grice / “Clay Structures”
The artwork: As a college student, Nelson Grice developed a deep passion for making clay sculpture. At the beginning, he specialized in building animal structures, but in recent years, his sculptures have evolved into observations about how animals and people are interconnected. Technically, he uses slabs of clay to create a series of design modules, which he then cuts and knits together into a structure. Using his own custom “legos,” he assembles the parts together. The result is an ironic blending of material, subject matter and animated personalities.
The artist: Alabama-based Grice focused on ceramics and painting for his BFA from the University of Montevallo. Since receiving his MEd in 1996, he has been teaching and developing his clay sculptures. His work merited a cover and the lead article as the featured artist for Ceramics Monthly Magazine in January 2007. His next interest is in creating and converting some of his clay work into large-scale bronze installations.
The artwork: Hollis Bennett describes himself as “a body in motion” all of his life. He moved with his family out of Tennessee before he was a year old, only to return in the last couple of years after having covered hundreds of thousands of miles throughout the world. He observes that this constant travel and motion have been a way of life for him, influencing every image he makes. His landscapes represent his singular vision—that is, to observe the interaction of the natural and built environments. As a result, he produces large-scale landscape images in color that are rich, broad, and haunting. His smaller black and white images are more intimate in scale, scope and technique.
The artist: Bennett studied photography at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and at the Art Institute of Colorado in Denver. On his return to Nashville, he established his own commercial and art photography business. His goal is to produce exemplary fine art, travel and documentary work that all fits together as the same body of work. His plan is to spend a year traveling through the U.S., Canada, Mexico and overseas carefully observing and documenting what he sees photographically that is distinctive about the 21st century landscape.
Kimiko / “New Orleans Series”
The artwork:Kimiko’s “New Orleans Series” is the latest photographic series she has completed in recent years, this one inspired by her love of New Orleans. The images make it clear that the spirit of New Orleans remains. She walked the streets day and night to stay focused on what New Orleans is like now, not then. She captured the good, the bad, and the ugly. While Kimiko’s black and white photography can stand alone, she prefers to return from her travels and paint in the color that she wants the images to have. Each piece of her work is an original, hand-painted piece. Altogether, the images offer an intriguing tour of this fabled city seen in its new circumstance, with beauty and dignity still intact.
The artist: Japanese-born Kimiko Sakai graduated from Toyo University in 1982. She came to America and moved to Nashville in 1995. Soon after, she studied photography at Nashville State Technical College and began quickly to develop her own photographic style and techniques. Tutored by some of her painter friends, she began to focus on hand painting each image to make each piece unique. By 2000, she had already won a national photography contest, and was well on her way with her own professional career. In 2007, Travelers Rest commissioned Kimiko to identify and document sites in Nashville related to “The Lives of Women in Nineteenth-Century Nashville,” an exhibit curated by Rob DeHart and presented as a one-person show at the Metro Public Library downtown.
Calvin Morton / “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
The artwork: Calvin Morton bills himself as an environmental artist. Growing up on the lakes of East Tennessee, he was surrounded by the Smoky Mountains. He was inspired by the natural beauty of the area, but as he grew older, he noted increasingly the smoke stacks in and around the Oak Ridge area and wondered what happened to the smoke. His first extensive body of work is based on his painterly exploration of that observation. His work makes quick connections between the past, present and future of the environment in Tennessee and how we are connected with larger global issues. Simply put, landscapes are not what they used to be; nor is the way painters approach landscape painting the same. His observations and techniques are 21st century. Claiming that lectures and protests about the environment can easily be tuned out, his hope is that a gallery setting makes our understanding of the environment a more personal, immediate, and visual experience.
The artist: Morton was invited to participate in the Governor’s School of the Arts of Tennessee in 2001. That’s when his interest in art became intense. In 2007, he graduated with an M.F.A. in Studio Art from MTSU in Murfreesboro. This exhibit at The Arts Company is his first commercial gallery showcase. He and his art are works in progress. This is truly fresh art of our time and place.
The Art of Books for March 2008
The Arts Company continues the new monthly series, The Art of Books, showcasing new and vintage books related to the arts as a complement to the Company inventories and exhibitions. For the March exhibits, the Company has asked each artist to identify favorite artists and related art books that are most impressive or important to them in their own work. In addition, there will be other new and vintage art books available both upstairs and downstairs. This new book series is intended as a destination for exchange of information and ideas related to The Art of Books.
About The Arts Company / 2008
Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and introduces new artists during FirstArt Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday / March 1, 2008 at
The Arts Company
Exhibition Opening Reception for Artists Meet Nelson Grice, Hollis Bennett, Kimiko, and Calvin Morton
March 1, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10 am until 9 pm
Exhibit continues through March 28
Presenting Works in Progress:
Clay sculpture by Nelson Grice
Contemporary landscape photography by Hollis Bennett
Hand-painted photography by Kimiko
Introducing
A new series of paintings by Calvin Morton
And Continuing
“The Art of Books,”
A monthly signature series of new and vintage art books
THE ARTS COMPANY
215 Fifth Avenue, North 615-254-2040
www.theartscompany.com
The Arts Company Introduces Two New Artists to Nashville
Nicole Katano, “Illuminations” Limited edition photographic diptychs and Javier Barbosa, “Paintings Set to Music” Contemporary abstract paintings
Also showcasing a special Mardi Gras series of paintings, “A Passion for New Orleans Jazz,” by Nashville-based William Buffett,
Opening during First Saturday / February 2, 2008
Also Featuring “The Art of Books,” A new monthly exhibit series previewing new and vintage books related to art
Meet the Artists: Nicole Katano and William Buffett During the First Saturday reception, February 2, 6-9 PM Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibits continue through February 22, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5 pm (Hours extended until 9pm on First Saturdays)
The Arts Company introduces two new artists to Nashville February 2 during First Saturday—Los Angeles-based photographer Nicole Katano and New Mexico-based painter Javier Barbosa—and presents a special Mardi Gras series of paintings focused on New Orleans Jazz by Nashville-based William Buffett. The opening reception, to be attended by Ms. Katano and Mr. Buffett, is scheduled for February 2, 6-9 pm. The exhibitions will continue through February 22 during regular gallery hours, 10-5:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday, at The Arts Company at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.
The Arts Company newest monthly signature series, The Art of Books, will feature new and vintage books related to the arts. This month’s showing includes books on artists from Banksy to Lucian Freud to Richard Avedon and new art commentaries such as Peter Gay’s “Modernism: The Lure of Heresy,” and Phaidon’s new “Art Book for Children.”
About the February 2008 Exhibitions February is the month of Valentines and Mardi Gras. The February exhibits planned for The Arts Company reflect the images, colors and passion associated with this time of year, each exhibit in very different ways. Nicole Katano makes new visual emotional connections in her limited edition series of photographic diptychs. Javier Barbosa pulls out the stops when he paints, accompanied by classical music, often singing along with his favorite operas as he paints. William Buffett, a self-avowed devotee of authentic New Orleans jazz, pays homage to the originators of jazz, presenting them on canvases with formal technique and style, bringing to mind the formality and dignity of Renaissance paintings. Even the Company’s new monthly signature series, The Art of Books, will feature new and vintage books in keeping with the time of year.
About the Artists Nicole Katano / “Illuminations”
Katano’s diptychs are full of recognizable images of familiar things, though she vows that her photographs are not about any thing in particular; but that she is more concerned with detail, texture, shape, light and color rather than images of any particular thing. Her work revolves around “the ability of the camera to isolate tiny fragments of time and space in such a way that otherwise fleeting details can be more consciously examined by the observer.”
Katano literally gathers up qualities found in color, light and shape in details of images and presents them to the viewer in ways that resonate with each other and literally elicit an emotional response in the viewer. The images are specific. The combinations are abstract. The response is emotional, immediate, and encourages a non-verbal experience in the viewer. “The ultimate point,” she says, “isn’t to tell people what to see or think. It is to make them feel.”
Los Angeles-based Nicole Katano began her professional career as a photographer after having received a BFA in film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in ceramics from San Francisco State University. Since then, in the last 25 years, she has produced a broad and deep portfolio of commercial projects for clients such as Nokia, Dreamworks SKG, American Girl and Paramount Pictures, among many others. At the same time, she was producing a large body of personal work, which she has only in the last couple of years begun to exhibit. In addition to The Arts Company, she has been signed for gallery exhibits in California and Santa Fe.
Javier Barbosa / “Paintings Set to Music”
A native of Mexico and currently a resident of New Mexico, Javier Barbosa is totally involved with classical music, especially opera, when he paints. His work is expressive and vigorous in style and palette. Though abstract, his paintings are specifically attached to the music he loves, and his organic style makes them easily accessible as well as exciting to the viewer. His paintings translate the listening experience into abstract visual equivalents of phrasing, tempo, rhythm and dynamics.
As a child in Monterrey, Mexico, Javier Barbosa grew up in a culture that appreciated color and celebrated it vibrantly in fashion, cuisine, entertainment, architecture, music, and certainly in fine art. Barbosa has mined that rich background for inspiration and refined it into paintings that offer fully arresting experiences in contemporary abstract art.
Barbosa is an original painter with a distinctive artistic vision and a substantial technical arsenal at his command. He maximizes the effects of color and intrinsic light by submerging interesting forms and textures under layers of clarity-enhancing mediums. His formidable set of application techniques gives his paintings a quality of exhilarating visual depth. Though often encouraged to go to art school to learn more, Barbosa has chosen to remain self-taught. That has enabled him to formulate and adhere to his own instinctual philosophy of art and to devise his own technical procedures.
Barbosa is a prolific painter who also has an opening of new work at the Elder Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina at the same time of his Nashville show at The Arts Company.
William Buffett / “A Passion for New Orleans Jazz”
Nashville-based William Buffett took a classical route to becoming an accomplished artist. He was awarded a full tuition scholarship at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in the 1950s and then began his travels as an artist to visit art museums around the country, picking up a Huntington Hartford Foundation Fellowship for painting along the way. In the early 1960s, he was drawn to New Orleans by the music. He went there to make studies of musicians at work. Throughout the decade, he painted portraits, worked as a sculptor, learned screen printing and presented solo art shows. In the 1970s he traveled—to NYC, to art museums in Europe, and to Japan, China, Thailand and Singapore, painting and sketching along the way. In the 1980s he began producing editions of serigraphs, which were published and enjoyed commercial success from widely distributed reproductions of both his serigraphs and paintings.
Buffett has lived in Nashville in the last couple of decades, and among other projects has continued to develop a small body of work focused on the roots of New Orleans Jazz. In the 1990s, he showed some of these paintings at the former Carlton Wilkinson Gallery in Nashville. This current exhibit features some 15-20 pieces in a series that includes very large canvases as well as small sketches from which the larger works were built. The exhibit is being presented in cooperation with Richland Fine Art in Nashville, where his work is represented.
With his background of classical training and his interest in the style and substance of indigenous American music, this series of paintings highlights both the dignity and spirit of true original roots of jazz.
The Art of Books for February 2008
The Arts Company continues the new monthly series, The Art of Books, showcasing new and vintage books related to the arts as a complement to the Company inventories and exhibitions. The February book exhibit will feature vintage, as well as recently-released books on the arts and artists—from Banksy to Warhol to Burtynsky to Peter Gay’s new commentary on “Modernism.” Every month, this series of curated exhibits spotlights a broad range of subjects of interest to the arts and to Arts Company clients—from history to biography to various media and issues. Both new and vintage books are included each month. This new book series is intended as a destination for exchange of information and ideas related to The Art of Books.
About The Arts Company / 2008 Established in 1996, The Arts Company continues to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company adds new artwork and new artists during First Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series has been added to these monthly receptions scheduled throughout 2008—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for public and office workplaces. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Information on First Saturday is also available on the website. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
First Saturday / February 2008 at The Arts Company Introduces two new artists to Nashville
Nicole Katano, “Illuminations,” limited-edition photographic diptychs And Javier Barbosa, “Paintings Set to Music” Also showcasing “A Passion for New Orleans Jazz” Paintings by William Buffett
and “The Art of Books,” A new monthly exhibit series, Featuring new and vintage books
Exhibition Opening Reception for Artists Meet Nicole Katano and William Buffett
February 2, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10 m until 9pm Exhibit continues through February 22
THE ARTS COMPANY 215 Fifth Avenue, North 615-254-2040 www.theartscompany.com
Regular gallery hours: 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday (Hours extended until 9pm on First Saturdays)
The Arts Company
presents
The 12th Annual Preview of Things to Come
Opening during
First Saturday / January 5, 2008
Featuring Lekhleti’s “Life is a Dance…of Sorts” Leandro del Manzo’s “Life is a Cabaret…and a Tango”
Introducing The Art of Books, A new monthly exhibit series
And Previewing Other New Artists and Artwork
Opening January 5, during the First Saturday reception 6-9 PM Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibits continue through January 25
The 12th Annual Preview of Things to Come at The Arts Company welcomes the New Year with two exhibits: “ Life is a Dance…of Sorts,” new paintings on paper by French-based Company artist Lekhleti; and “Life is a Cabaret…and a Tango,” paintings on canvas and paper by new Company artist Leandro del Manzo. The opening reception is scheduled during including a First Saturday, January 5, 6-9 pm, preview of new artwork and new artists, and introducing a new monthly series, The Art of Books, showcasing new and vintage books related to the arts. The exhibits will continue through January 25 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday at The Arts Company.
About the January 2008 Exhibitions
Fresh, original and full of energy for a New Year—that’s what the two featured exhibits for January are all about. Arts Company favorite, Lekhleti, French-based artist who has been an affiliate artist at the Company for two years, has just completed ten new paintings on paper for the occasion. Leandro del Manzo, a native of Argentina, will exhibit paintings on canvas and paper, all related to themes of cabaret and tango.
The first exhibit of the New Year is always about previewing what’s to come. This year the emphasis is on lots of new artists being introduced to the Company this coming year in solo exhibits. New artists include: Nicole Katano, photographer; William Buffett, painter; Aaron Brown, painter; and Javier Barbosa, painter, among others. Other Company artists will be previewing new work as well.
In addition, The Arts Company will introduce a new monthly series, The Art of Books, presenting new and vintage books related to the arts.
About the Featured Artists
French-based Mohamed Lekhleti, with an artistic academic background from universities in Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence, has become a successful emerging artist throughout Europe, frequently invited to participate in various European art expos. He is represented by galleries in France and Germany, as well as here in Nashville. His works on paper and canvas are typically dominated by mythical narrative and legend. His interest in embracing as much space as possible has led him to use large shapes and dynamic swells in a world of spirals. This will mark his third exhibit at The Arts Company.
Leandro del Manzo,a native of Argentina, is a fourth generation artist. His talent was recognized at a very young age and a public exhibition of his work was held when he was thirteen years old at the Museum of Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Leandro studied drawing and painting with renowned artist Martinez Howard who had studied with Lino Spilimbergo and the great Hungarian artist Lajo Szalay. Leandros’s paintings are included in several International public and private collections in Argentina, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Zurich, Mexico City, and Toronto. In the United States his work is included in collections in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City and Charlotte. His subjects often include the tango and cabarets, both of which are featured in this current exhibit. He paints with energy and flourish, and a great sense of color, even with his paintings that are strictly black and white.
IntroducingThe Art of Books
In January 2008, The Arts Company introduces The Art of Books, a new monthly series showcasing new and vintage books related to the arts, as a complement to the Company inventories and exhibitions. The series will be curated as exhibits that spotlight a broad range of subjects of interest to the arts and to Arts Company clients—from history to biography to various media and issues. There will be guest hosts each month beginning in February, and both new and vintage books will be included. It is intended as a destination for exchange of information and ideas related to The Art of Books.
About The Arts Company / 2008
In this 12th year, The Arts Company will continue to be a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Company will continue to add new artwork and new artists during First Saturdays every month, 6-9 pm. In addition, a new monthly series will be added to these receptions—The Art of Books, a showcase for new and vintage books related to the arts. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include a downstairs gallery, and an extensive inventory of artwork, books and other galleries upstairs at The Arts Company, designed especially to develop exhibits and projects for business clients. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
First Saturday / January 2008 at The Arts Company
Exhibition Opening Reception January 5, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10am until 9pm Exhibit continues through January 25
Presenting The 12th Annual Preview of Things to Come
Lekhleti’s “Life is a Dance…of Sorts”
Leandro del Manzo’s “Life is a Cabaret…and a Tango”
Introducing The Art of Books, A new monthly exhibit series
Previewing new artwork and new artists
THE ARTS COMPANY 215 Fifth Avenue, North 615-254-2040 www.theartscompany.com Regular gallery hours: 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday (Hours extended until 9pm on FirstArtSaturdays)
The Arts Company presents The 11th Annual Holiday Arts Market Opening during FirstArtSaturday / December 1, 2007
featuring April Street’s “Elastro Pops,” a new painting series
Jim Hubbman’s “Staged Narrative Paintings”
David Sokosh’s “Vintage Christmas Ornaments,” A series of contemporary tintypes
Plus lots of fresh, original artwork, selected art books and art gifts throughout The Arts Company galleries
Opening December 1, 2007
during FirstArtSaturday reception 6-9 PM Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibits continue through December 22
Once again, The Arts Company has fully stocked two floors of galleries chock full of art for the holidays—headlined by April Street’s new series of paintings, a new series of paintings by Jim Hubbman—introducing to Nashville a series of vintage Christmas ornaments as the subjects of contemporary tintypes produced by David Sokosh, a NYC DUMBO-based artist—and adding selected art books to the artistic repertoire of the gallery. All of these special features are part of this large-scale holiday arts market that opens during downtown’s FirstArtSaturday, December 1, 6-9 pm, and continuing during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm through December 22.
About The 11th Annual Holiday Arts Market
The Holiday Arts Market is a big deal every year at The Arts Company. This is the 11th annual market that is chock full of artwork that typifies what this gallery is all about—fresh, original, and contemporary artwork brought to the marketplace in full force for this exciting time of year.
This year’s line-up includes: special new exhibits by April Street and Jim Hubbman; introductions to new artists such as David Sokosh, whose artistic specialty is making vintage photographic techniques come to life in contemporary ways; additions to the company’s artistic repertoire through selected art books; and continuing to showcase classic black and white photography and a variety of other artwork through the holidays.
About the Featured Artists Artist / April Street
“Elastro Pops” is the new series of canvases April Street has produced for her annual exhibit of new work at The Arts Company. They combine both of her worlds of figurative/representational and abstract by focusing on the sheer energy of the shapes and forms of movement, focusing on an underlying patterns of dance movements. Her technical mastery of her subject and materials is part of the great pleasure her work communicates to the viewer. As always, her canvases are typically large scale, which the visual movement she creates requires.
April Street is from the coal mining region of the Appalachian Mountains. She currently lives and makes her work in Los Angeles, CA and Bristol, TN. She has exhibited her painting and sculpture in Chicago, Austin, Santa Monica, Los Angeles' Chinatown, as well as, in Nashville, TN where she exhibits with The Arts Company and annually shows during “Artrageous” – a benefit for AIDS education and services.
Artist / Jim Hubbman
“Staged Narratives,” a new series of watercolor and graphite on paper, presents an expansion of Jim Hubbman’s ongoing interest in stretching the limits of his interest in producing very detailed and intricate watercolor paintings. In his new work, he adds bold strokes of graphite to enhance his watercolor technique. He stages his visual ideas as suggested narratives, but the viewer still has to figure out what the story lines are.
St. Louis-based watercolorist Jim Hubbman completed a fine arts degree at Maryville University in Saint Louis. He has spent several years as a commercial illustrator and graphic artist along with raising a family. Over the years, he has gathered stories and observations which he has incorporated into his paintings. Currently, he is working on a master’s degree in fine art at St. Meinrad’s in Indiana.
Artist / David Sokosh
“Vintage Christmas Ornaments,” a series of contemporary tintypes of vintage ornaments, is one of the projects of vintage photography techniques being revived by Brooklyn-based artist David Sokosh.
In the era of digital photography and mural-sized color enlargements, Sokosh is part of the renaissance in hand-crafted photography, on an intimate scale. In our world of digital, mass-produced photography, Sokosh is drawn to the hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind nature of early photographs. Sokosh says: “I’m a 21st Century person, living in a self-created 19th Century world full of period objects of all kinds. This authentic process lets me explore the mindset of the early photographer/scientist/collector. I’m drawn to the quality of photograph-as-object,,,and excited by the hands-on aspect of the process.” Sokosh uses original lenses from the period, on cameras of his own design and fabrication. The chemical mixtures are identical to those used in the 19th century. HIs images on metal could be referred to as tintypes, but in a departure from 19th century techniques, Sokosh uses aluminum rather than tin plates. Some are calling these images Aluminotypes
In addition to his own work, Sokosh owns an art gallery in DUMBO Brooklyn, NYC.
About The Arts Company: Happy 11th Gallery Birthday on December 1
FirstArtSaturday has been one of The Arts Company’s signature events throughout 2007, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen by a group of nearby galleries to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. On FirstArtSaturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with the opening reception scheduled from 6-9pm.
The Arts Company is completing its eleventh year as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company continues to house a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country selected to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses and individuals to fit their needs. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company will launch its twelfth year in January 2008 with a new series of exhibits, events and special guests to be announced.
The Arts Company presents FirstArtSaturday / November 2007 presenting
Classic Black & White Photography
Amalie R. Rothschild, “Woodstock & Rock ‘N Roll”
Bill Steber, “Mississippi Blues Culture”
Bob Kolbrener, “Yosemite Landscapes”
Opening November 3, 2007
FirstArtSaturday reception 6-9 PM
Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibits continue through December 22
At The Arts Company, three November exhibitions will feature three master black and white photographers--Amalie R. Rothschild, Bob Kolbrener, and Bill Steber. A dramatic variety of traditional black and white photographs covers the Rock 'n Roll golden era, Yosemite landscapes directly inspired by Ansel Adams, and the Mississippi Blues Culture, respectively. The opening reception for these exceptional exhibits is scheduled for November 3, 6-9 pm, during FirstArtSaturday. The exhibitions will continue through December 22, open during regular gallery hours, 10-5 pm, Tuesday through Saturday at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, North.
About the Exhibits
Each of these three master photographers shares a passion for black and white photography, including making their own limited-edition prints, based on their own high standards. They have each produced a large and distinctive body of work that showcases their individual aesthetic styles, as well as a wide range of subject matter and technical expertise. The photographs included from each photographer in these exhibits are based on a highly selective group of images from each that speak to the outstanding accomplishments of each photographer. For Rothschild, seventeen images were selected to reveal intimate moments on stage and backstage of historic rock and roll concerts in the late 60s and early 70s. For Kolbrener, seven images from his landcapes, Yosemite, and nude series are included. For Bill Steber, Steber himself has been asked to select 15 images from his Mississippi Blues series that best speak to him of the beauty and artistic excitement of black and white photography.
The Arts Company is introducing Rothschild and Kolbrener to Nashville for the first time. The gallery continues to encourage Steber to select, make special print series, and present new work from his Mississippi Blues series.
About the Artists
Artist / Amalie R. Rothschild
Amalie R. Rothschild's star-studded photographic exhibition at The Arts Company is an extravaganza of musical icons from the golden era of Rock 'n Roll 1968 - 1974. Starting in 1968, Ms. Rothschild photographed such seminal cultural events such as Woodstock, the 1969 Newport Jazz festival, the American premier of The Who's rock opera Tommy, The Isle of Wight Festival, and numerous concerts at Tanglewood, Madison Square Garden; and the night-to-night events at the Fillmore East. Photographers had relatively unfettered access to performers onstage and backstage.
Some of the selections for this exhibit include a large format image of Tina Turner and Janis Joplin performing together in 1969, plus Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, John and Yoko, a Jimi Hendrix rehearsal, and a large crowd shot from Woodstock, among others.
As of 2006, Rothschild began printing limited editions of images from her impressive personal archive. She prints her black and white photographs in her own darkroom using traditional archival methods and chemistry.
Amalie R. Rothschild has a multi-faceted background in graphic design, photography, computer imaging, motion picture and video production. She has a BFA in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design where she studied photography with Harry Callahan, and an MFA in motion picture production from NYU's Institute of Film and Television where she also studied photography with Paul Caponigro. Her book, “Live at Fillmore East,” documents Rothschild’s intimate and immediate access to musical legends. Most recently, Rothschild was included in this past summer's Whitney Museum exhibit, “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era.” Rothschild currently lives in New York City and Italy. In addition to The Arts Company, her work is also represented in New York, Denver, Culver City, CA, and Santa Fe.
Artist / Bill Steber
Bill Steber’s photography is well-known to Nashvillians through his years as a key staff photographer for The Tennessean, beginning in 1989. When Steber set out on his own to begin documenting the Mississippi Blues Culture. In 1997, he received a year-long grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation. In 1999, he returned to The Tennessean, and remained there as a senior photographer until 2004. By then, his documentary photography and related writing took on a whole new passionate dynamic for him. His project combines portraits of blues musicians playing at home and in clubs with images that describe what remains of the rural African-American culture that gave rise to the blues. Examples include juke joints, cotton farming, sacred music, rural church services, river baptisms, folk religion and superstition, African fife and drum music, penitentiary life, and more.
Steber established close friendships with the people he photographed, friendships that remain today when he as both a photographer and musician continues to return to the Mississippi Delta. This exhibit at The Arts Company is designed to spur him on to publish a book of his very intimate and up close look at a revered part of the southern musical heritage. Steber graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with degrees in both English and Photography. It is a natural for him that his passion for the Mississippi Blues Culture is well-grounded in a historical as well as an artistic and musical perspective. In addition to The Arts Company, Steber’s work has been featured at the Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago.
Artist / Robert Kolbrener
Robert Kolbrener had a lifelong commitment to traditional, analogue photography that became a professional commitment when he encountered the photography of Ansel Adams in Adams’ gallery in Yosemite National Park in 1968. Within the next ten years, he became a student of Ansel Adams and in 1977 was invited to be an instructor, along with Yousuf Karsh, at Adams’ Yosemite workshop. Since then, Kolbrener’s commitment to the tradition of “straight” photography has never wavered. His focus is on the “inherent qualities of space, scale and quietude of the Great American West,” especially in Yosemite National Park.
In the meantime, Kolbrener and his wife set up a photography business in St. Louis, structured to allow them to work five months and take the next month off to return to Yosemite and the Great American West. He has noted that these nomadic experiences allowed him ample time to develop an ongoing body of work of substance and diversity.
Kolbrener is quick to point out that there is no use of computers or multiple imagery, and no print or negative enhancement such as bleaching or intensification. He wants it understood that all of his photographs “are made in the Great American West using 2 ¼” and 8 x 10” cameras. I print up to 40 x 50 inches the “old fashioned way” using fiber based paper, tray processing and selenium toner. My goal is to produce prints which truly celebrate those most exciting photographic moments!”
Kolbrener has retired to live in California and to continue full time his photographic quest in the Great American West. In addition to The Arts Company, his work is represented in the Ansel Adams Gallery, where he just completed a one-man exhibit, as well as recent exhibits in the Fay Gold Gallery in Atlanta and the Mosko Fine Art Gallery in Denver.
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is one of The Arts Company’s signature events, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen by a group of galleries to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. On FirstArtSaturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with the opening reception scheduled from 6-9pm.
The Arts Company continues in its eleventh year as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company currently houses a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country selected to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses and individuals to fit their needs. The gallery website, www.theartscompany.com, is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday/November 2007 at The Arts Company
Exhibition Opening Reception November 3, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10am until 9pm
Exhibit continues through December 22
Presenting Classic Black & White Photography
Amalie R. Rothschild, “Woodstock & Rock ‘n Roll”
Bill Steber, “Mississippi Blues Culture”
Bob Kolbrener, “Yosemite Landscapes”
THE ARTS COMPANY 215 Fifth Avenue, North 615-254-2040 www.theartscompany.com
Regular gallery hours: 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday (Hours extended until 9pm on FirstArtSaturdays)
The Arts Company presents FirstArtSaturday / October 2007
Paintings & Sculpture: The Frenzels, Meagan Kieffer, Brother Steve
Opening October 6, 2007 Artist reception 6-9 PM Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibit continues through October 26
The October exhibition at The Arts Company features three kinds of artwork from four artists—Kristen and Mason Frenzel, Meagan Kieffer, and Brother Steve. The opening artist reception is scheduled for October 6, 6-9 pm during FirstArtSaturday, which features extended gallery hours until 9 pm. The exhibitions will continue through October 26, during regular gallery hours, 10-5, Tuesday through Saturday at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts.
About the Exhibits and the Artists
This October exhibition is a pairing of four distinctive artists working in sculpture and/or painting, presented as three different exhibits. A lot of additional new artwork to be presented in exhibits later this fall will be previewed as well.
The Frenzels (Kristen and Mason) wanted to have some fun, and they have. They caught onto the idea of Nashville Crowns—Nashville Royalty through Nashville Hair—portraits of ten different Nashville legends, but the hair looks familiar in all of them. Theirs is a sophisticated take on part of what we love about our Nashville icons. The surfaces of their jointly-produced mixed-media approach on wood shimmers and pleases the eye. This Murfreesboro-based husband and wife team work on each canvas together, literally at the same time--no mean feat in itself.
Meagan Kieffer loves horses. You cannot keep her away from them. She spends summers in South Dakota working with them on her family’s ranch. The rest of the time she’s hand-building horses, always in clay, and fires them up and brings them from Watertown to Nashville. She loves to read, and she reveres the important role of horses in history. She mixes horses and books in neat ways in her clay sculpture.
Brother Steve produced lots and lots of clay sculpture in the 1980s in the Marinanist Studios, leaving some pieces behind when he transferred from the Marianist order to the Benedictines. We are presenting a small selection of his work which we have dusted off and made ready for presentation for our friends and guests who simply enjoy having access to rare but fantastic work. A few pieces of his Matisse-like cut paper pieces are included, as well as painted ceramic pieces in the style of Picasso. This work is not replenishable, because his many talents are now focused on producing contemporary stained glass.
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is one of The Arts Company’s signature events, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen by a group of galleries to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. On FirstArtSaturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with the opening reception scheduled from 6-9pm.
The Arts Company continues in its eleventh year as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company currently houses a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country selected to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection. The Company’s various gallery spaces—over 6000 square feet on two floors in a historic building—include an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses and individuals to fit their needs.
FirstArtSaturday/October 2007 at The Arts Company
Exhibition Opening Reception October 6, 6-9 pm Gallery open 10am until 9pm
Presenting
Paintings & Sculpture: The Frenzels, Meagan Kieffer, Brother Steve
Regular gallery hours: 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday (Hours extended until 9pm on FirstArtSaturdays)
The Arts Company
presents FirstArtSaturday / September 2007
“Posthumous Fame” Paintings by Wes Sherman
Opening September 1, 2007 Opening reception 5-7 PM Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM Exhibit continues through September 28
The fall season at The Arts Company begins with a new series of paintings, “Posthumous Fame,” by Wes Sherman, a Tennessee native who currently resides and works in the NYC area, featuring abstract paintings based on master paintings, including selections from The Stieglitz Collection, as well as Caravaggio, Delacroix, Boudin and others. The opening reception for the artist is scheduled for September 1, 5-7 PM during FirstArtSaturday, which features extended gallery hours until 9 p.m. The exhibition will continue through September 28, during regular gallery hours, 10-5, Tuesday through Saturday.
About the Exhibit
Wes Sherman is one of those emerging artists whose work continues to attract wider attention from galleries and museum collections around the country.This year’s exhibit at The Arts Company holds special interest for Nashvillians, since three of his abstract paintings are based directly on paintings included in the Steiglitz Collection from paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe (“The Radiator Building”), Charles Dumuth (“Calla Lilies (Burt Savoy)” 1927), and Cezanne (“Bathers at Sainte Victoire”).In addition, one painting is based on a photograph of the Nashville skyline, and one is based on one of Sherman’s own painting of his wife, called “Southern Woman.”(Painting on left: “The Radiator Building” by Georgia O’Keeffe; painting on right: “O’Keeffee 1927-2001 I” by Wes Sherman)
Posthumous Fame / Wes Sherman Sherman’s style and materials are organic, appealing, and original. He takes his cues from the elements of space, light and color he finds within the original work, and adds his own antagonistic element to the painting he selects. When placed side by side with an image of the original painting, his work makes obvious reference to the original and yet makes its own case as an original painting.
Sherman sees painting as a timeless language. His paintings engage in an historical conversation with other paintings. Typically, he selects the paintings he abstracts because of their relevance to contemporary common experience, be it spiritual or political. Because experiences are seldom without struggle Sherman adds tension in his paintings. Tension is part of the style and substance of his work. (Painting on top: “Beach Scene, Trouville, 1864” by Eugene-Louis Boudin; painting on bottom: “Boudin 1864-2005” by Wes Sherman)
About Wes Sherman Wes Sherman has been painting since 1992. In 2001 he returned to school to get his graduate degree and to study under Thomas Nozkowski at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers he received the TA/GA Competitiveness Pool Funds Award, the Andrew W. Mellon Colloquium from the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum and was an alternate for the Space Program of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation.
Sherman has been showing his work and receiving special awards and acquisitions since graduating from Rutgers. His most recent successes have been two simultaneous solo shows in Chicago, Illinois (2005), a nomination for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2005), his first solo show in New York City at Baumgartner Gallery (2006) and an acquisition of work by the Hunterdon Contemporary Art Museum in Clinton, NJ (2007).
While in Nashville for The Arts Company exhibit, Sherman will be a visiting artist at the Watkins School of the Arts on Tuesday, September 4. He has recently been a visiting artist at Calumet College (Chicago, IL), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), and Freed-Hardeman University (Henderson, TN).
About The Arts Company FirstArtSaturday is one of The Arts Company’s signature events, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well for the monthly gallery crawl. On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with the FirstArtSaturday reception scheduled from 5-7pm.
The Arts Company celebrates its tenth year throughout 2007, continuing as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company currently houses a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country selected to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection. The Company’s various gallery spaces on two floors in a historic building are complemented by an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses and individuals to fit their needs. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
presents
FirstArtSaturday / August 2007
“White Pony Cadillac:Old Love and New Blues”
Paintings by Jonathon Kimbrell
Plus music-related paintings, photography and sculpture and additional new work from other gallery artists
And
The 10th Annual Avant-Garage Sale*
The popular gallery sale of art, posters, furniture, and miscellaneous props from the gallery, presented in the gallery garage
Opening August 4, 2007
Opening reception 5-7 PM
Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM
Kimbrell Exhibit continues through August 24
* Garage Sale One Week Only—through August 11
“White Pony Cadillac:Old Love and New Blues,” a new series of paintings by Jonathon Kimbrell, and the “10th Annual Avant-Garage Sale” will highlight the August FirstArtSaturday exhibition series at The Arts Company, with the opening reception scheduled August 4, 6-9pm.The Kimbrell exhibit focus on music will include new paintings by this Texas-based artist, as well as other paintings and photography from selected gallery artists.One of the gallery’s special annual events--the “10th Annual Avant-Garage Sale”—will be presented in the gallery’s parking garage and will continue for one week only—through August 11. The Kimbrell exhibition will continue through August 24 during regular gallery hours, 10-5, Tuesday through Saturday. The Avant-Garage Sale will continue for one week only—through August 11.The gallery is closed on Mondays.Call 254-2040 or preview the exhibits on the website at www.theartscompany.com for additional information.
About the Exhibits / Summertime at The Arts Company
Summertime at The Arts Company always includes a focus on music-related artwork to showcase Music City to summertime Nashville visitors and guests who check out what’s happening in downtown Nashville.Jonathon Kimbrell is a young artist who, like many others, is enamored with legendary musicians of our time.His newest original paintings will be complemented by selected musical pieces by various other gallery artists.Summertime at the gallery is also identified with the gallery’s popular annual avant-garage sale, held in the gallery garage, and featuring props and selected artwork from gallery archives. Music, props and artwork from gallery archives, accompanied by ice cold lemonade offer a great way to celebrate summertime at The Arts Company.
White Pony Cadillac:Old Love and New Blues / Jonathon Kimbrell
The new series of paintings by Jonathon Kimbrell will feature rock stars, blues gods, corporate identities—the subject matter of most of his work.But according to Kimbrell this new series of paintings will also feature “ghosts of my past, blood, sweat, tears and pain.”
The 10th Annual Avant-Garage Sale / Gallery Archives & Props
Always a feast for the eyes and pocketbook, the 2007 Annual Avant-Garage Sale will feature artwork and props from the gallery’s backstage storage area, as well as vintage artwork and other items selected for this event.This year’s sale and show will include a variety of vintage art posters, books, and miscellaneous artwork selected for this event; furniture and memorabilia; vintage photographs, folk art, and lots more. This popular gallery event continues for one week only--August 4-11--during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm Tues.-Sat., and will open as part of FirstArtSaturday on August 4.
About Jonathon Kimbrell
At a young age, Texas-based Jonathon Kimbrell took a great deal of interest in modern art and music, allowing both aspects to greatly influence his own art. While developing his style in college, Kimbrell took a nod from 1960s Pop Art. He preferred the works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Eduard Ruscha. Kimbrell graduated in 2004 from McMurry University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in painting and graphic design.
Kimbrell quickly began gathering attention for his portraits of musicians, film stars and personal friends and family. He is owner of Napkin Art Studios, a company that produces graphic design, photography, paintings and stained glass windows. His motto is: “Swell art for a swell price!”
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is one of The Arts Company’s signature events, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery.The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests.Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well for the monthly gallery crawl.On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with the FirstArtSaturday reception scheduled from 5-7pm.
The Arts Company celebrates its tenth year throughout 2007, continuing as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary.The Arts Company currently houses a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country selected to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection. The Company’s various gallery spaces on two floors in a historic building are complemented by an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses and individuals to fit their needs.Regular gallery hours are:10am-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday.
FirstArtSaturday/August 2007
at
The Arts Company
Exhibition Opening Reception
August 4, 5-7 pm
Gallery open 10am until 9pm
presenting
“White Pony Cadillac:Old Love and New Blues”
Paintings by Jonathon Kimbrell
Plus music-related paintings, photography and sculpture and additional new work from other gallery artists
And the
10th Annual Avant-Garage Sale
The popular gallery sale of art, posters, furniture, and miscellaneous props from the gallery, presented in the gallery garage
Regular gallery hours:10-5 Tuesday-Saturday
(Hours extended until 9pm on FirstArtSaturdays)
The Arts Company presents FirstArtSaturday / July 2007
July Summer Art Market Opens featuring “Deja vu Expo,”
Art, decor, and design from private collections and gallery archives
Opening July 7, 2007 Opening reception 6-9pm Gallery open 10 AM – 9 PM
Exhibit continues through July 27
And continuing through July 27: Brother Mel’s 8th Annual Artistic Pilgrimage: “From Chartres to Nashville: 1957-2007”
The July Summer Art Market is scheduled to open July 7 during the monthly FirstArtSaturday exhibition series at The Arts Company. Extended gallery hours-- 10am-9pm—include an opening reception from 6-9pm in the gallery located at 215 Fifth Avenue of the Arts, continuing through July 27. The exhibit focus is on “Déjà vu Expo,” an annual gallery showcase of art, decor, and design from private collections and gallery archives. Work from a wide variety of artists will be included in the exhibition, from Andy Warhol to John Baeder to selected outsider art and miscellaneous Nashville artists from collections from the 1980s and 90s. In addition, the “Eighth Annual Brother Mel Artistic Pilgrimage” will continue through July 27 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Tuesday through Saturday. The gallery is closed on Mondays.
Déjà vu Expo:
Art, Decor and Design The Arts Company Summer Art Market opens with an annual gallery event, “Déjà vu Expo: Art, Decor and Design.” Selected artwork from private collections and the gallery’s own archives will be exhibited in presentations mixing artwork, antiques, furniture and more Upstairs at The Arts Company.
The Déjà vu Expo will include: “Happy 80th to Marilyn,” a special group of vintage and recently released Eisenstaedt photographs of Marilyn Monroe, who would have been celebrating her 80th birthday this year. Other selections include: an Andy Warhol self-portrait; an original John Baeder watercolor of Brown’s Diner; a Kostabi painting; selected outsider art, including a rug made from cigarette packages, a Gee’s Bend rug, a cow carved by legendary Kentucky folk artist Linvel Barker, remaining pieces from Joe Light’s estate; miscellaneous artwork by Nashville artists from the 80s and 90s; and various furniture pieces from different eras such as deco, mission style, and handmade wooden chairs, work tables, vintage tin shelving and decorative historic shelving, plus lots more.
From Chartres to Nashville: 1957-2007 / Brother Mel This exhibition of the most comprehensive exhibit to date of Brother Mel’s artwork presented at The Arts Company will continue for an extra month. Brother Mel is an exceptional artist who just celebrated 50 years as a working artist, alongside 60 years as a Marianist monk. This year’s exhibition focuses on his recent work over the last year, but also includes selected pieces to indicate the comprehensive breadth of the kinds of artwork this prolific artist has produced over his lifetime, including small and large sculptures, abstract and other paintings, religious icons, and miscellaneous surprising combinations of materials and subjects for which this artist is known. Selected pieces from private collections will be included to indicate some of the chronology of his artwork.
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well. On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 6-8pm.
The Arts Company celebrates its tenth year throughout 2007, continuing as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company currently houses a photography showcase as one of 14 galleries in the country to represent legendary photography from the LIFE Magazine Collection, and various gallery spaces on two floors in a historic building, all complemented by an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses, designers and individuals to fit their needs.
Artist Reception 5-7pm Birthday cake with Brother Mel 6pm
Exhibit continues through July 27
The June FirstArtSaturday at The Arts Company, scheduled for June 2, features one of the gallery’s most popular exhibits of the year: Brother Mel’s 8th Annual Artistic Pilgrimmage—“From Chartres to Nashville: 1957-2007.” The exhibit will feature a fifty year look at the life and artwork of Brother Mel Meyer, a Marianist monk from the St. Louis area. Bother Mel makes an annual artistic pilgrimage to The Arts Company every year, but this year the exhibit promises to be even more special. This year marks Brother Mel’s 79th birthday—his 60th year as a Marianist monk, and his 50th year as a working artist
The FirstArtSaturday Series at The Arts Company is a monthly exposition of artwork downtown on Fifth Avenue of the Arts, featuring extended gallery hours on the first Saturday of every month—10am-9pm—with an artist reception from 5-7pm, including birthday cake with Brother Mel at 6pm. The June exhibition will be extended through July 27 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Monday-Saturday, at the gallery located at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. Call 254-2040 for additional information.
About the Exhibition From Chartres to Nashville: 1957-2007 / Brother Mel
This exhibition will be the most comprehensive exhibit to date of Brother Mel’s artwork presented at The Arts Company. The gallery will host a 79th birthday party for this exceptional artist who will be celebrating 50 years as a working artist, alongside 60 years as a Marianist monk. This year’s exhibition will focus on his recent work over the last year, but will also include selected pieces to indicate the comprehensive breadth of the kinds of artwork this prolific artist has produced over his lifetime, including small and large sculptures, abstract and other paintings, religious icons, and miscellaneous surprising combinations of materials and subjects for which this artist is known. Selected pieces from private collections will be included to indicate some of the chronology of his artwork.
Self Portrait / 1987
About the Artist Brother Mel
Brother Mel, a Marianist monk, has worked as a resident artist in the Marianist order for fifty years. After joining the “Marianists” (Brothers of Mary) in 1947, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Dayton. As a talented young artist, he was selected to work with “Yoki” Aebischer in Fribourg, Switzerland and Jacques le Chaveillier in Paris, France during 1958. In 1960 he earned his Master of Arts at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, studying under the internationally renowned artists Ivan Mestrovic and Jean Charlot. Today, Brother Mel’s works not only reflect numerous travels, but also an ever-expanding ability to create art in a variety of media, such as metal, stone, watercolor, fresco, acrylics and handmade paper.
Brother Mel has traveled throughout the world sketching and painting. He has been commissioned to design and outfit churches and chapels; Adam’s Mark Hotels in San Antonio, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Charlotte; and his large indoor and outdoor sculptures and stained glass windows are featured throughout St. Louis in such places as The Barnes Hospital Interdenominational Chapel and the Monsanto International headquarters. The 1999 exhibit at The Arts Company was the first Nashville-area showing of Brother Mel’s work. The gallery has presented his new work each year since then.
About The Arts Company FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well. On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 5-7pm to meet the artists.
The Arts Company
presents
FirstArtSaturday / May 2007 featuring
“A Mirror in the Landscape:
A Young Man’s
Journey as an Artist” A new series of photographs by
John Nikolai
&
“Limited-Edition
Museum Art Posters” Hand-pulled letterpress block prints designed by Kevin Bradley,
Bryan Baker, & Adam Ewing For The Phillips Collection &
The National Gallery
Opening May 5
Gallery open 10am-9pm
Artist Reception 5-7pm
Conversation with John Nikolai 6pm
Exhibit continues through May 25
The May FirstArtSaturday at The Arts Company is scheduled to open May 5.The exhibit will feature two new presentations:one, a new series of photographs by Nashville-based John Nikolai chronicling his life as mirrored in the landscapes of his travels in Ireland.The other presentation is a small selection of limited-edition museum posters commissioned by two museums—the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection—from Knoxville-based designers Kevin Bradley, Bryan Baker, and Adam Ewing.Additional museum and art posters from The Arts Company archives will be featured as well.
The FirstArtSaturday Series at The Arts Company is a monthly exposition of artwork downtown on Fifth Avenue of the Arts, featuring extended gallery hours on the first Saturday of every month — 10am-9pm — with an artist reception from 5-7pm, including a conversation with John Nikolai at 6pm.The May exhibition will continue through May 25 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Monday-Saturday, at the gallery located at 215 Fifth Avenue, North.
About the Exhibitions
A Mirror in the Landscape: The Journey of a Young Man Becoming an Artist / John Nikolai
This new series of photographs by John Nikolai chronicles the journey of a young man becoming an artist, based on images he captured during his trips to Ireland.Nikolai’s exhibition tells not only a visual story, but documents in his writing that accompanies the images his evolution as a young artist, focused on the medium of his choice--photography.Aided and encouraged by his Nashville photographic mentor Jim McGuire, John is now working full time as a photographer.This is his first solo exhibit.
Limited-Edition Museum Art Posters /
Kevin Bradley, Bryan Baker, and Adam Ewing The hand-pulled letterpress posters by Kevin Bradley, Bryan Baker and Adam Ewingare part of a Tennessee story played out in Washington, D.C. Kevin Bradley, founder of Yee-Haw Industries in Knoxville, learned the technique of hand-pulled letterpress printing at the University of Tennessee, and after a brief period at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, settled finally on Knoxville as the place to develop his own artwork and printing style for a variety of clients. He and his colleagues at Yee-Haw Industries were commissioned in 2005 and 2006 to design posters for two major art exhibits- The Societe Anonyme at the Phillips Gallery and Dada at the National Gallery of Art--both major art museums in Washington, D. C. This exhibit is about those commissions.Additional art posters from The Arts Company archives will be included in this exhibit of special art posters.
About the Artists John Nikolai
John Nikolai began his life journey in NYC, completed his degree in English literature at Princeton, and took on two professional journeys—one as an intern stock broker in Manhattan, followed by a lengthy stint as a manager for a corrections company that brought him to Nashville.Once here, he discovered photography and apprenticed himself to Jim McGuire, whom he credits for offering aesthetic and technical guidance in his new field of choice.He has been drawn to Ireland for personal reasons on more than one occasion and has used the images he discovered there to document his evolution as a young artist.
Kevin Bradley, Bryan Baker, and Adam Ewing /
Yee-Haw Industries
Kevin Bradley, Bryan Baker, Adam Ewing, along with their associate Julie Belcher, have worked as a team developing new techniques and designs based on using hand-pulled letterpress materials for posters. Yee-Haw Industries was established in 1997 in Corbin, Kentucky by Bradley and Belcher, whose associates have joined in their exploration of contemporary applications of hand-produced techniques and images made from antique wood and metal type and hand-carved woodblocks. It is not a technique readily associated with contemporary art and museum exhibits, but this exhibit shows that in their hands they succeeded in doing that—using design, fine paper, and hand-pulled printing in a contemporary style of their own.
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery.The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests.Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well.On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 5-7pm to meet the artists.
The Arts Company presents FirstArtSaturday / April 2007 Featuring two exhibits
“Whispers from the Ridge” A series of paintings dedicated to the Carter family by Teresa Robinette &
“Pairs: Two Artists with Stories to Tell” A new series of paintings by Kristen Frenzel & Mason Frenzel
Opening April 7
Gallery open 10am-9pm
Artist Reception 5-7pm
Exhibit continues through April 27
The April FirstArtSaturday at The Arts Company is scheduled to open April 7, headlined by three artists—Teresa Robinette, Kristen Frenzel, and Mason Frenzel. All three artists are figurative painters and all three paint of the history of place and people past and present with whom they are intimately acquainted. They each embellish the background and circumstance of the relationships between people, place, and the ongoing narrative of history that they have each experienced. About the Exhibitions The three painters in these two exhibits use figurative narratives set in backgrounds that reflect a shared interest in personal histories from specific southern places. Whispers from the Ridge / Teresa Robinette This new series of paintings by Teresa Robinette is filled with figures and landscapes drawn from the personal history of the artist’s home in Appalachia. She paints of the land and the people. Each painting stems from and is named for phrases taken from the legendary first family of country mountain music—the Carter Family; songs such as “Can the Circle be Unbroken.” Backgrounds of flat-patterned landscapes with traditional folk imagery and symbols provide depth and balance for the large, realistically-portrayed figures that have become the focal point in her paintings. She considers her work a documentary in progress, recording for posterity the vanishing culture of her ancestors in Appalachia. “For me I paint memories,” says Ms. Robinette. “I paint stories. I paint the ghosts that walk through my life and house. It is those distant images and voices of the mountains that bid me to paint them.” Pairs: Two Artists with Stories to Tell Together / Kristen Frenzel & Mason Frenzel Kristen and Mason Frenzel work together at the same time on each canvas to tell stories of relatives and relationships with which they are both familiar. This husband and wife duo comes from two different styles—Kristen’s with more embellishment and Mason’s with more focused symbols to reveal the characters in a sparse environment. Their simultaneous approach is somewhat new to both of them. Says Kristen: “Not only did we bring ideas together for concept and composition, but we also both physically painted on each piece, often at the same time.” They simply discovered they could paint together and tell better stories, knowing that this approach might test styles, skills, and their marriage. In this case, all three challenges have clicked together more tightly. They tell visual stories with a sense of nostalgia combined with sharp insights into the current life of the figures they have created and the background they place them in. The canvases are rich with painterly strokes, acrylic, paper and other mixed media. For the viewer, each canvas looks like the work of one painter. About the Artists Teresa Robinette Teresa Robinette was born in Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains just across the line from East Tennessee. After completing her BFA and MFA degrees in art at Virginia Commonwealth University, she left home to make her way as an artist in Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Her art can be found in major collections both here and abroad such as the U.N. Plaza Hotel, PBS, the Millenium Corp. (London), American Express, and Disney Headquarters, among others. Returning to the region after a 30-year absence, Robinette says she began to hear “the whispers from the Ridge,” and decided to make the area her home again and pursue a different style of painting—using a folk realism style to dramatize the aura of the places and the people she depicts.
Kristen and Mason Frenzel Kristen Frenzel earned a BFA in Painting from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN. Since graduating, she has been a part of many invitational and juried exhibitions in the Nashville area. Mason Frenzel also earned his B. S. degree from MTSU in film and media production. He is also a singer-songwriter who heads up his own band, Sleeptalker. He has provided artwork for various CD covers. This is the first art show in which they have presented together. Some of the separate artwork from each artist will be included in their exhibit. About The Arts Company FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well. On the first Saturday, The Arts Company opens at 10am as usual, but remains open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 5-7pm to meet the artists.
OpeningApril 7, 2007 Gallery open 10am-9pm
Reception 5-7pm
Unveiling at 6 pm
Exhibit continues through April 30, 2007
The Arts CompanyFirstArtSaturday on April 7, from 5pm to 7pm, will feature The Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) and debut the new exhibit, The Art of Film. Highlighting the exhibit opening, the gallery will unveil the 2007 Nashville Film Festival commemorative limited-edition poster by painter, animator and gallery artist Jonathan Richter at 6pm. All proceeds from the sale of the poster will be donated to the Nashville Film Festival. Along with paintings by Richter, the exhibit will also include works from the gallery archives that focus on film history. Short films will be presented by NaFF in the gallery’s Avant-Garage from 6-8pm. The exhibit will continue through April 30.
This occasion will serve as a preview of the Nashville Film Festival, which takes place April 19-26, 2007 at the Regal Green Hills Cinema in Nashville. Jonathan Richter’s festival poster will show how animation works as an art form. Combining his skills as a sculptor and storyteller with his painterly skills as a gallery artist, Richter offers unusual insight into how an artist imagines a story line and gives it life on film using all the techniques of an artist. The Festival will open with the world premiere of My Secret Record or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Biz, a documentary focused on singer-songwriter and international recording star Rob Thomas. The world premiere of Americanizing Shelley, a film by director Lorraine Senna (Sopranos; Northern Exposure) that features Beau Bridges will close the Festival on Thursday, April 26.
The Art of Film/Nashville Film Festival The Arts Company and the Nashville Film Festival are partnering to present film as a visual art form. In this exhibit, the gallery will present signature gallery artwork—paintings, drawings, and photography—related to the art of film, as well as a group of Jonathan Richter’s paintings. “We are proud to host the Nashville Film Festival at The Arts Company to unveil the key image that will identify this year’s film festival,” said gallery owner Anne Brown. “Through the visual arts, we will focus on the festival’s trademark theme of combining the genres of music, art, and film. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Nashville Film Festival for years to come.”
“We are extremely pleased to unveil our first annual commemorative poster art at The Arts Company,” said Brian Gordon, NaFF Artistic Director. “This year’s festival is our most diverse lineup yet, and we continue adding variety by presenting film through both the performing and visual arts.”
Jonathan Richter, painter and animator, premiered his work at The Arts Company in November 2005 as their featured artist for Artrageous. His series, /Pigments, Figments and Tremens/ consisted of 99 small works that were executed exclusively in pubs. Working discretely at a corner table with limited palette, brushes, lighting and scale, Richter completed multiple paintings per evening. To capture the spontaneity of the moment and the images of the people interacting, he experimented with color, form and concept. His paintings, like those of Lautrec, Degas and Glackens, are created in bustling peopled places rather than in sterile studios. Considering himself to be a public space painter, Jonathan was trained in fine art, illustration and animation at Otis Parsons in Los Angeles. Jonathan followed his painterly path to Nashville where he discovered the city’s most populous places—the sidewalks, the watering holes, the juke joints and diners—an abundant inspiration for his spontaneous portraitures. Jonathan’s current exhibit at The Arts Company is a continuation of the distinctive style in which he captures his subjects. Expect even more tiny, yet interesting portraits—each one a true conversation piece.
Nashville Film Festival is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation and receives funding from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, H. Franklin Brooks Philanthropic Fund, William N. Rollins Fund for the Arts of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, The Frist Foundation, The Memorial Foundation, Nashville Metro Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Ragsdale Family Foundation, Target Stores, Tennessee Arts Commission, The Cal Turner Family Foundation, and its generous patrons and sponsors.
FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well. The Arts Company will open at 10am as usual, but will be open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 5-7pm
The Art of Film – Nashville Film Festival April 7, 5:00pm – 7:00pm 6:00pm – Unveiling the Nashville Film Festival Commemorative Poster 6:00pm – 7:00pm – Jonathan Richter Signing Commemorative Poster
The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday
presents “Guider Goes Platinum: ‘Noble Elements’”
Selected Photography Classics by John Guider
&
“Paint of Many Planes” Abstract Paintings by Brad Wreyford
Opening March 3, 2007
Gallery open 10am-9pm
Reception 4-7pm
Meet the artists at 5 pm
Exhibit continues through March 30, 2007
The March FirstArtSaturday at The Arts Company is scheduled for March 3, headlined by two Nashville-based artists in two one-man shows--John Guider and Brad Wreyford.John Guider’s photographs selected for the show, “Guider Goes Platinum:Noble Elements,” will feature rare platinum prints printed by Guider.In addition, the gallery will introduce one of their new artists, Brad Wreyford, featuring a series of abstract paintings in his one-man show titled “Paint of Many Planes.”
About the Exhibit Both of the artists this month are focused on the materials of their artwork—John Guider with platinum photographic printing and Brad Wreyford with a style developed from exposure to industrial materials. In both cases, these artists produce elegant contemporary artwork that comes out of the sheer manipulation of materials, whether chemical or industrial.
Noble Elements /John Guider
John Guider has developed a national audience as well as a Nashville audience for his fine art photography over the last decade. No stranger to The Arts Company, the gallery has presented his successful Italian and Paris series, as well as his rare platinum prints. Guider is known for creating his vision of photography by enhancing images through manipulation and printing techniques, as well as applying his painting abilities to his photographs. He is the consummate contemporary photographer, always experimenting with the aesthetic and the technical options available to him.
In this exhibit, Guider is focused on large black and white platinum prints, deliberately choosing this complex technique to give the images he selects as much depth of color as any black and white photograph can have. It is a rare thing to see platinum prints in any form, but especially so to see large prints such as these.
Paint of Many Planes / Brad Wreyford
Although new to Nashville and to The Arts Company, Brad Wreyford has already made a name for himself as an emerging artist. His paintings are thought-provoking, but easy on the eye as well. His paintings often express his love of the art as well as his love of raw materials. Initially, he was aiming for a career in engineering and math, but once he took a drawing class “on a whim,” his life changed. Wreyford paints mostly on wood panels, because, according to him, the characteristics of the panels “allow him to build a history, a narrative, that canvas cannot.” His colors are rich and textured, complemented by lines and forms that organize the space in surprising ways.
About the Artists
John Guider
Spending the past thirty years in Nashville, Tennessee, John Guider has been a significant element to the city's creative community. Achieving award-winning success as a celebrated commercial photographer, he is the owner of John Guider Studio, General Manager of Guider-Boughton Digital, and been engaged by most of Music City's advertising agencies and artists. His talented vision communicating concepts and designs has garnered accounts with Jack Daniels, Nortel, and McDonalds, among others. He has earned numerous accolades and awards, including the Silver Medal by the Nashville Advertising Federation, a Certificate of Design Excellence from Print's Regional Design Annual, the Excalibur Award from the American Cancer Society, an Award of Excellence from the Communication Arts Photography Journal, and multiple American Advertising Federation Awards (Addy's).
Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Guider studied photography under Ernst Haas and Jay Maisel, and graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in mechanical engineering. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Nashville chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and the Nashville Advertising Federation. He resides in Tennessee at his 1850s farmhouse in Franklin and at his 1850s federal house in the East section of Nashville.
Brad Wreyford
Brad Wreyford, originally from Shreveport, LA, earned his BFA in Sculpture from Louisiana Tech University. Although seemingly destined for a career in the science and technology industry, Wreyford was an engineering/math major when, on a whim, he took a drawing class and knew immediately that his life was going to change. Wreyford’s inspiration comes from the uniqueness of whatever environment he’s in. The changes in light and landscape, the pride and personality of different cultures, and his reaction to new surroundings are all elements that affect his work. His works are other-worldly. Wreyford doesn’t think of them as abstract or non-objective, but realism from another dimension or a planet yet discovered.
About The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday is The Arts Company’s newest signature event, designed to present a monthly exposition of new artwork, frequently adding special exhibits curated from the rotating inventories of the gallery. The first Saturday of every month was chosen to extend longer gallery hours each month to downtown residents and other gallery guests. Several other downtown galleries are open until 9pm as well. The Downtown Partnership offers a free trolley that has three stops convenient to all the galleries. It runs from 6-10 pm. The Arts Company will open at 10am as usual, but will be open until 9pm, with an exhibition reception scheduled from 4-7pm, and a Meet the Artist session at 5 pm. The former Salon Saturday series of conversations with artists will be incorporated occasionally into FirstArtSaturday events as special opportunities occur.
The Arts Company celebrates its tenth year throughout 2007, continuing as a prime destination in downtown Nashville for fresh, original, contemporary and vintage artwork in photography, painting, and sculpture, by artists from emerging to legendary. The Arts Company currently houses an artist-in-residence, a photography showcase, and various gallery spaces on two floors in a historic building, all complemented by an extensive backstage inventory space housing a vast array of artwork available for businesses, designers and individuals to fit their needs. The gallery website—www.theartscompany.com—is available 24/7 for reviewing and previewing artist portfolios and gallery and satellite exhibitions sponsored throughout the year by the gallery. Regular gallery hours are: 10-5pm, Monday-Saturday.
The Arts Company
FirstArtSaturday presents
“The Freshness of the South” New paintings by Charles Keiger & “The Art of Romance” Classic Valentine selections from gallery artists
The Arts Company announces the February exhibition of artwork for the 2007 FirstArtSaturday Series, a monthly exposition of artwork on Fifth Avenue of the Arts in downtown Nashville.The February FirstArtSaturday is scheduled for February 3 at The Arts Company,headlined by a one-man show of a new series of paintings, “The Freshness of the South,” by Atlanta-based artist Charles Keiger. In addition, the gallery will present a show themed for Valentine’s Day, “The Art of Romance,” which will include selections from gallery artists.
The FirstArtSaturday Series at The Arts Company is a monthly exposition of artwork on Fifth Avenue of the Arts, featuring extended gallery hours on the first Saturday of every month—10am-9pm—with an artist reception from 4-7pm. The February exhibition will continue through February 24 during regular gallery hours, 10-5pm, Monday-Saturday, at the gallery located at 215 Fifth Avenue, North. Call 254-2040 for additional information.
About the Exhibits
The Freshness of the South / Charles Keiger
What is going on in these paintings?The visual world Charles Keiger creates with careful precision matches people and environments with selected symbolic props that together are intended by the artist to reveal emotionally charged moments.According to gallery owner Anne Brown, “Keiger’s work is distinctly Southern—sophisticated and naïve at the same time.Nothing is left to chance—except what it all means.He engages the viewer visually, but leaves him alone to put the pieces together.”Keiger’s world is a world that continues to draw the viewer back to the canvas, revealing new visual clues each time. “Keiger would say that we all tend to reveal things about ourselves in simple ways,”Brown continues, “As an artist, he prefers to show us emotional
