Nashville is also noted for its love of storytelling in words, images and voices. For years, the city has been home to major publishing houses, printing presses, nationally recognized writing programs, great authors, poets, journalists and songwriters.
Opening Friday, November 6, 2015 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts Center and on view through February 7, 2016, “Anthology: Visual Narratives from Nashville’s Print Community” is a juried exhibition that celebrates this ongoing tradition by presenting the works of individual artists and small presses who use a variety of printing techniques to tell stories through images and text.
Whether in handmade books, illustrated posters and poems, intimate etchings, or the inventive use of Photoshop, visual narrative in all its printed forms represents the heart of Nashville’s culture.
The work exhibited in Anthology was selected by a jury, consisting of Katie Baldwin, assistant professor of book arts and printmaking, University of Alabama in Huntsville; Liz Coleman, reference librarian and galleries coordinator, Nashville Public Library; and Mark Scala, chief curator, Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Artists in the exhibition: Mika Agari, LX Aguirre, Celene Aubry, Dan Brawner, Nancy Cooley, Leslie Haines, Jana Harper, Jennifer Haston, Nick Hay, Mark Hosford, Amber Lelli, Alysha Irisari Malo, Cynthia Marsh, Ashley Moore, Heather Moulder, Kathleen O’Connell, Meghan O’Connor, Laird Ogden, Johnny Lee Park, Lesley Patterson-Marx, Jerry Bedor Phillips, Zack Rafuls, Nick Satinover and Robin Schlacter.
While local artists take center stage in ‘Anthology’ — the themes of the artworks are by no means restricted to geographic boundaries. The subject matter ranges from the playful, as in Leslie Haines’s humorous representation of the English alphabet in Animal Abecedary (S is for Slug, C is for Cat) (2014), to more intimate narratives such as Jana Harper’s project Joie’s Story (2013), inspired by memories of her mother. The exhibition also includes mixed-media works like Cynthia Marsh’s Katika Afrika (2012–13), which employs digital printing, wood type, and found woodland debris to chronicle a three-week art-making adventure in East Africa.
“The Nashville area is home to some terrific graphic artists who work with a wide range of ideas and sensibilities,” says Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala. “Nashville, of course, is also a publishing center, and a world center of music—it’s all about the aesthetics of communication, storytelling, understanding ourselves through shared narrative.”
Additional information is available by calling 615.244.3340 or online at www.fristcenter.org.