Nashville Visual Arts Events Apr. 5-6

I’m just going to cover the first weekend things. There’s a bunch of stuff next week, and Faith Wilding is coming to talk at Watkins on the 17^th.

I got word this week that Matt Mikulla has closed his gallery and studio in the Arcade. That’s really too bad. He was a very strong part of the community there, and he was doing interesting things. I’ve added his website on my list here, go visit him. He’s going to keep going with his photography, and I suspect he’ll do well getting his work out there through the web.

As for the openings this weekend, I’m particularly heartened that Rymer has picked up Susan Maakestad from Memphis. She’s on faculty at Memphis College of Art, a fine painter. I first saw her work at the Tennessee Arts Commission, and I wrote an essay for a show she did at Rhodes College in Memphis.

As always, if you have an email list of your own, feel free to forward this.

If someone wants to get added directly to my list for the email version of this listing, send me an email at dcmaddox@comcast.net. To get taken off the list, email to that effect at the same address.

Apr. 3

Sarratt Gallery, Rachel Simmons. I know, this opening has past, but the show is up for a while longer. Simmons’ art casts creatures of the deep sea as strange, fantastic, almost gothic forms.

Apr. 5

Ruby Green, The Axe and The Spade, Jonathan Bouknight, Adam Davis, John Trobaugh. The title of this group show refers to a Native American test which determined the gender role of children—male, female, or a third gender—I don’t know, but I suppose this was one of the inspirations for Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. These guys do stuff with gender signifiers, and apparently also redefine the exhibit space, which often makes for the most interesting exhibits at Ruby Green.

TAG, Vadis Turner. This looks like a lot of fun. Vadis Turner makes boxes of candies and confections out of cloth and beauty products, femininity gone amok. Among the highlights of her biography is that she’s a graduate of Harpeth Hall, and apparently still processing that experience.

Arts Company, Aaron Morgan Brown and Rod Daniel Brown (no relation to gallery owner Ann Brown) paints very complicated, sophisticated images, lots of layers, tricky perspective effects that he get from the smallest moves. Rod Daniel had a career as a television and film director, but he was also taking photos on the road—this exhibit B&W photos, a lot of buildings and landscapes in the West.

Rymer, Evoke, Viviane Case-Fox, Susan Maakestad, Linda Prud'homme, and Martin Saint-Laurent I’ve linked to an entire essay on Susan’s work, so I’ll leave it at this. She’s showing at Rymer with three other painters who seem to cover a lot of ground stylistically between them.

Tinney-Cannon, Sherrie Love Bohlinger Love Bohlinger is from Montana and paints a lot of western themes—horses, buffalo, and of course the landscape—in dreamy, vivid colors.

Twist, Rachel Clark A series of small paintings arrayed on a grid, running humorous variations on decay and waste.

Apr. 6

CRAFT: A Creative Community A group of local artists/artisans, bringing Nashville into the world of DIY crafts, holds its first monthly sale/fair of the new year in the parking lot of Lipstick Lounge from 11-5 on Sunday.