Crawl Space: Goodbye to Red 225 and a Reunion at The Browsing Room


It’s insane that it’s almost November. I say that because November is generally insane, as we tip past the top of the seasonal roller coaster and begin the terrifying plunge into the jingle-jangle blare of the holidays. Regardless of all the crazy-making, we’re about to be knee-deep in the most wonderful time of the year, and it’s never too early to start thinking about giving one-of-a-kind local art from galleries and boutiques all over Nashville. This month’s First Saturday happenings will help you fulfill your wish lists with prints, photography, paintings, sculpture and more.

Wedgewood-Houston

As I recommended in last month’s “Crawl Space” column, Khara Woods’ Square Biz exhibition of geometric abstract paintings was a highlight of October’s First Saturday happenings in Wedgewood-Houston. The show continues through November at Red 225 in The Packing Plant. Red 225 gallerist Kathleen Boyle has also announced that Woods’ show will be the gallery’s final display before they close their doors at the end of the month. Red 225 debuted in February 2023, and it was full of surprises from the start. Boyle programmed, curated and installed the gallery as a one-woman operation, and the tiny space regularly punched above its weight. Red 225 hosted a show of Bryan Jones’ trippy and exquisite multimedia abstract landscape paintings in April 2023, and Boyle organized local printmaker Chris Cheney’s poignant childhood/fatherhood exhibition, 1995: Dirt Roads Were Everything in August 2023. Red 225 teamed up with Rock Wall Gallery in Wedgewood-Houston and Lorenzo Swinton Gallery in Clarksville for the Jay Sanchez-curated mega-exhibition Cosa Nostra last winter, and Boyle included more than 80 works by women artists exploring the theme of intimacy in her Intimacism show this summer. Galleries come and galleries go, and in between we can all hope they matter. Red 225 mattered. Closing reception 5-8 p.m. at Red 225, 507 Hagan St.



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From The Drake, Tamara Reynolds


If I had one wish for Nashville’s contemporary art scene, it would be for a dedicated contemporary art museum. But if I had two wishes, I’d request more galleries committed to showing photography. For now, we’ll have to make due with the occasional exhibition of light-based images. This month, Coop will be doing the heavy lifting with a display of Tamara Reynolds’ exhibition The Drake. The show takes its name from the Murfreesboro Pike motel known for its glorious vintage road sign and its weekly room rentals. The Drake is a moving series of portraits, still lifes and streetscapes that offers an unfiltered look at lives affected by addiction, crime and abuse, all centered on the titular derelict motel. Reynolds’ images document a subculture that society often ignores: addicts, sex workers, felons and day laborers, living in dangerous environments, only one misstep away from homelessness or even death. The images — and the stories behind them — are impactful in and of themselves, but what makes this series so compelling is its personal connection to Reynolds’ own experiences with addiction and recovery. The artist’s raw and intense photographs challenge viewers to see the unseen and acknowledge the marginalized. Opening reception 1-9 p.m. at Coop, 507 Hagan St. 

Danya Parvin’s In Memory arrives at Open Gallery in November. The show affirms my predictions of the ascendance of abstract landscapes that echo the work of early American modern artists. Parvin’s process transforms her outdoor observations into images of captured moments, highlighting how creative depictions of the natural can inform ongoing conversations about preservation, conservation and the importance of touching grass. Parvin’s work is exceptional in the way her woodcut materials and processes reflect her natural subjects and content. This kind of resonance between the stuff a work of art is and the stuff it’s about is always a sign of next-level making. Parvin’s a young artist — she only recently graduated from Lipscomb — but she’s already creating work with the kind of integrity that lots of local art veterans have yet to manage. Parvin studied graphic design at Lipscomb, and In Memory boasts elegant patterns populated with insects and flora. It would be a pleasant enough show at that, but Parvin’s use of woodcuts introduces the grain and imperfections of her printing matrix into her finished images, upsetting their symmetry, disrupting their colorful backgrounds and enveloping her cleanly cut lines in undulating expressions of natural disorder. The visual noise that Parvin’s materials and processes bring to her work pushes these sylvan scenes into abstraction. Her hand-cut designs of insects, vines and flowers remain intact, but her overall images are brought to life in the tension between Parvin’s crafted representations and patterns, and the comparative visual chaos pulled from her natural surfaces. Opening reception 6-9 p.m. at Open Gallery, 507 Hagan St.  

Downtown

Last but not least, The Browsing Room at the Downtown Presbyterian Church opens Firmament: Early Artists in Residence at Downtown Presbyterian Church this Saturday night. The show celebrates 25 years of the church’s one-of-a-kind creative studio program with a display by some of the artists who first populated the DPC’s storied making spaces way back at the turn of the 21st century. The display includes contributions from Andy Harding, Herb Williams, Julie Lee, J. Todd Greene and the founder of the artist residency, Tom Wills. In addition to the opening, I’ll be chatting about my new book Nowville: The Untold History of Nashville’s Contemporary Art Scene with former Scene contributor David Maddox at 6:30 p.m. J. Todd Greene’s band, Buulb, will perform at 8 p.m. Opening reception 5-9 p.m. at The Browsing Room, 154 Rep. John Lewis Way N.  


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