Fall Catalogue 2014

516 hagan . nashville . 615-780-9990 . davidluskgallery.com

fall catalogue 2014

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

DAVID LUSK GALLERY

Greetings.

It’s busy at David Lusk Gallery and our Nashville neighborhood, Wedgewood/Houston. Dozen, the bakery that will be our neighbor, is mid-construction; the distillery in the back of our block is underway; Zeitgeist Gallery is busy next door; Gabby’s is serving some fine burgers across the street; and the other galleries and artist studios in the neighborhood are bringing in more people every day.

So, we hope to see you soon at DLG. This e-catalog (sort of like the Neiman Marcus wish book, the old-time Sears catalog, or the too-frequent Anthropologie or Patagonia mailings) shows a little bit of what we have to offer right now. Take a look inside -- every artist included here has a whole lot more inventory available at the Gallery. Plus, davidluskgallery.com has almost everything pictured online.

Please let any of us know how we can help you on the art search. Dane Carder and Sara Estes are in Nashville, and ready to help. Robert Hollingsworth, Amelia Briggs and Greg Smith are at the ready in Memphis. And I’m out there working, too.

We look forward to seeing you soon,

David

MARK BRADLEY-SHOUP

INTERSECTION (LOW CEILING)oil on sx-70 polaroid, 2013, 4.25x3.25”

Masking tape, rulers and x-acto blades are only a few of the tools that Mark Bradley-Shoup utilizes to create his works on

paper and canvas. Photographs of urban and rural landscapes are deconstructed to build up texture and emphasize certain

angles and colors. The result is a work void of any photorealistic qualities –that effectively plays with negative space and flat geometric shapes to infer issues of our economic culture.

POOL SIDEoil on panel, 2013, 12x27”

BRUCE BRAINARD

ILLUMINATED GROVE - WOODED LANEoil on canvas, 2014, 48x40”

Brainard, a native of southeastern Idaho, grew up surrounded by The Tetons -- the perfect setting for quiet reflection and

meditation. When seeking life’s greater meaning he identifies crystal clear skies, wide-open spaces, solitary tress and mounds of brush as stand-ins for the many transformations of man. His realistically painted works are allegorical depictions of natural settings as the

symbol of man’s capability to find a state of grace and peace.

CARROLL CLOAR

UNTITLED (THE CHICKENS)acrylic on masonite, 1993, 22.5x32.25”

Carroll Cloar was born on his family’s farm near Earle, Arkansas, in 1913. Throughout his life he used images of rural America in

his work, sometimes portraying events from his own life. Cloar’s narrative realism is frequnetly compared to Edward Hopper’s, Ben

Shahn and Robert Gwathmey. As Cloar said, “Each painting is a sort of story. There is a fantasy and folk tale in them.”

Among many honors, a 1966 Cloar painting, “Faculty and Honor Students, Lewis Schoolhouse” of children holding an American flag backwards, was reproduced on a poster commemorating fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton’s Presidential Inauguration. Cloar’s

work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney

Museum of American Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.

HOWE’S CASH GROCERY, STUDYgraphite on vellum, 1964, 21.5x31.25”

MAYSEY CRADDOCK

Maysey Craddock’s work revolves around the visual exploration of the vanishing natural coastlines that remain wild – constantly shifting between water and land, vacillating between disappearing and becoming. The meaning of Strand as a thread or connecting line serves many purposes: it is Craddock’s resolute use of thread as a key material to interpret her continuous yet disrupted landscapes; it is the literal and visual zone between high and low tide, and it is the delineating, unreachable area between land and sea, between reality and its mirror image.

These interpretations culminate in a visual back-and-forth with references of entropy and the inevitability of change as land disappears and is re-deposited. Now the coastline is like an active ruin, constantly being reinvented. Man has a hand in this – controlling this progression, desperately hemming in, reinforcing, and engineering an illusory state of stasis. What remains through the work is a documentation of the diminishing “real” that remains.

DRAWN INTO A DEEPER SHORE I, II, IIIgouache and thread on found paper, 2014, dimensions vary

HAMLETT DOBBINS

UNTITLED (FOR E.W.O./G.V.)oil on canvas, 2012, 45x50”

Recognizing the ancient concern about illusionary space hardly begins to assess the complexity of Hamlett Dobbins’ paintings. Nor does that recognition explain the range of shapes and their relationship to one another, nor the possibility of a vast and rich terrain opened up through allusion. Dobbins’ canvases, both small and large, employ pure abstraction and pure painting. He is often described as a “painter’s painter” for the manner in which he tackles shape, texture, color orchestration, compositional counterbalancing, and surface layering.

His elaborate weaving of shapes and forms results from Dobbins’ intense scrutiny and emotional attachment to the people who inspire each painting. Although each painting is “Untitled” they also bear a series of initials (i.e. “for D.A.L./T.F.”) -- a shorthand acknowledging the person or experience that initiated the artwork.

In 2013, Dobbins was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize, for a year’s study and work at the American Academy in Rome.

UNTITLED (FOR A.A.R./D.D.H.)oil on linen on panel, 2014, 17x20”

WAYNE EDGE

Wayne Edge has long made sculptural works out of natural objects that reference organic elements of Earth or our atmosphere. He binds thin wooden sticks together with pieces of found items (rocks, glass, stones, shells and the like) into dynamic sculptural works. Stick by stick the sculptures curve upward and outward, allowing the eye to move rhythmically from one end of the piece to the other, all the while giving the viewer a sense of tranquility and space.

Aside from the organic quality of his work, Edge is also renown for breathing new life into material that is often considered scrap. Currently, the artist is utilizing locally grown and sustainable tulip poplar and walnut. At the same time, he is exploring the use of applied color – both with painted wood and found objects.

RIVER OF STARS #1painted tulip poplar and mussel shells, 2013, 45x82x5”

DON ESTES

VEIL #11mixed media on panel, 2013, 56x48”

As an abstract painter Estes interprets horizon lines and landscape into multi-colored and multi-dimensional land stratums. Flat layers of paint are added in assured gestures to a raw canvas or panel –sections are stained, while others possess thick globs of paint. In this manner, the striking combination of southern sunsets and warm gulf waters are translated onto the surface using a dry pigment, pastel and gesso application. The result is an energetic and vibrant display of color, shape and form.

In his most recent work, the combination of Perdido Bay’s water and sky in lower Alabama serve as the foundation. Estes focuses anew on predominately middle key colorations, while introducing overlapping vertical sections within his recognized horizontal structure. The adjustment adds a subtle complexity to his harmonious balances. DECEMBER 4

mixed media on panel, 2013, 44x48

TED FAIERS

ALL MODERN CONVENIENCESoil on canvas, 1955, 36x28”

The estate of Ted Faiers is a trove of work that spans four very distinct periods and styles. His paintings from the 1940s are western landscapes, reminiscent of Grant

Wood or Thomas Hart Benton. Faiers paintings from the early 50s are primarily studio paintings – still lifes, portraits, and street scenes – with a limited palate and a

modernist technique. The rest of the 50s found him under the influence of Will Barnet, and those paintings and prints are distinctly abstract and an extremely flattened sense of space and shape. Those shapes became very minimal and fluid in the early 60s and

shortly thereafter morphed into stylized figures. With the advent of pop art in the later 60s Faiers’ figures gained a cartoonish sensibility, became more pictorial and narrative.

Then, in the mid-70s, he began constructing stretcher armatures and attachments: noses and breasts sometimes protruded right off the canvas.

Faiers had a strong exhibition history throughout his life. He sold work – even during the 1950s in Memphis where his art must have been considered very “out there.” He

was a talented educator and has legions of former students. But at heart he was a working artist. Looking through his life’s output it is easy to understand that he had an

addiction to making art. David Lusk Gallery is proud to continue growing the recognition of the art of Ted Faiers.

THE CHARGE TWOwoodcut, 1961, 17.25x24”

HUGER FOOTE

UNTITLED (RED CUSHIONS)archival pigment print, 2010, 16x24”

The combination of vibrant color, tight composition, and intense light and shadows transform mundane objects into large-scale observations of the world around us in Huger Foote’s photographs. Foote is a notorious wanderer of back alleys, deserted roadways, abandoned lots and desolate commercial plots. He is a keen observer of the commonplace, and captures that overlooked, unusual beauty with his lens. Whether thefocus is on chicken wire entwined with an overgrowth of bright yellow wildflowers or the shape and texture of cherry red cushions, he demonstrates the value of giving everyday objects a second look as works of art.

Foote received his BA at Sarah Lawrence College. Since, he has apprenticed with the esteemed photographer Annie Leibovitz, established a commercial photography career and developed an extensive group of collectors, both public and private, around the world. In 2011 he received a commission from the New York Times to capture the city during springtime.

UNTITLED (ARROW)archival pigment print, 2013, 30x20”

MARY ADDISON HACKETTAfter a decade on the West Coast successfully pushing boundaries with colorful and daring abstract works, Hackett returned to her Southern roots and her childhood home in Nashville, Tennessee in 2013. The move gave her pause and a time to reevaluate her technique, style and subject matter as a painter: “Abstraction seemed inadequate as I began opening closets and drawers that contained ready-made vignettes from the past, and gradually the work became a direct response to my surroundings.”

As the seasons changed, the work progressed from domestic interiors, work tools and the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life, to nature and adjacent outdoor spaces. It is a direct observation, but one that remains a little blurry and rough around the edges – conveying the same sentimental feeling Hackett felt when returning to her childhood home. This element of personality constructs the meaning of memory in daily life with verve, attitude and humor.

FLOCKEDoil on linen, 2014, 10x8”

STUDIO WINDOWoil on canvas, 2014, 54x66”

FLOCKEDoil on linen, 2014, 10x8”

TYLER HILDEBRAND

RESIDENCE 22TENNANT 16

RESIDENCE 18

Artist Tyler Hildebrand does not shy away from the harsh realities of contemporary American culture. Through a variety of mixed media including

paintings, sculpture and film Hildebrand strives to represent grotesque elements of society, even if it means revealing an uncomfortable and

oftentimes crude environment. By exposing the perverse, depraved and degenerate truths of the world around us, Hildebrand produces work that is

often tough to look at, sometimes witty and always thoughtful.

The concepts and characters that exist in the work are threaded into one narrative called Mohawk BLVD chronicling Hildebrand’s personal experiences.

The artist comments, “Sometimes I am playing activist, sometimes I am observing realities, and sometimes I am portraying absurdities. These

elements of our society exist together on Mohawk Boulevard, where they interact in dysfunctional bliss.”

ink and acrylic on paper, 2014, 17x12” ea

TENNANT 15TENNANT 12TENNANT 13

KATHLEEN HOLDER

An abrupt transition in Kathleen Holder’s artistic practice arrived during a revelation she experienced while engaged in Hindu meditation. The vision involved the artist’s body floating overhead. As Holder peeled back a thin layer of herself, a veil of her persona was revealed. Astonishingly, the gossamer-like quality of the layer was made up of millions of tiny pulsating lights.

The life-changing experience provided the artist with a new quest of expressing the energy, intuition, and forces that shape individual lives into her work. Layer upon layer of pastel color is built up, and burnished by hand, into what Holder has called psychic, abstract landscapes. Each piece, while exceedingly minimal in tone and composition, has a great depth of both color and form and meaning.

pastel on paper, 2012, 45x23”

OKEANOS XXII

pigment print, 2012, 30x22”

ANAMNESIS XVI

LESLIE HOLT

oil on canvas, 2014, 20x20”

HELLO MARILYN (FRUITY DELIGHT)

Leslie Holt is recognized far and wide for her “Hello Masterpiece” series of paintings: Holt copies instantly recognized paintings in miniature, faithful in all

respects to the original, save for the addition of the Hello Kitty character appropriately inserted into the action. Her work is featured in a book that

analyzes the Japanese icon as both art and commodity in Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific by Christine Yano.

The “Hello Masterpiece” series can be looked at as a diatribe against gross commercialism in our culture. Why else would the image of a plastic figurine

be painted into a copy of an uber-recognizable painting? Or the series can be considered a tour-de-force of painting copying and clever toy placement. Or, the

series can be enjoyed the way anyone likes a jewel-like Matisse, Renoir, Lichtenstein or Warhol – just with an added punch.


HELLO MONDRIAN (FRUITY DELIGHT)

PAUL MCLEAN

ink acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 2014, 65.5x78”

TRAIL OF TEARS

Over a career spanning three decades, Paul McLean has explored dimensional (4D) art, drawing from a spectrum of sources and influences to create dynamic narrative images.

His series map convergent phenomena over time. The artist has approached his practice as a progressively revealing sequence of experiments, always rooted in the domain of

meaning and value, means and values.

Since the mid-90s McLean has integrated digital processes into his studio flow. He was an early adopter of computer-generated printing, internet-based art, social media and

camera (moving and still) output. Embracing multi-disciplinary approaches to making art, McLean has toggled between solo and collective production, insisting that the play, the

shared discourse and the joint projects connecting the artist to his creative collaborators is complementary to his contemporary solo endeavors. McLean has bolstered his craft or technical explorations with forays into the linked systems of science and philosophy,

consistently findinginspiration in the disciplines dedicated to understanding the workings of our universe.

ink and acrylic on canvas, 2014, 30x30”

RED OLD HICK ON RED HORSE

GREELY MYATT

reclaimed wood and steel, 2014, 78x28x8”

PLANK

Myatt, whose decade’s-long art-making career has often focused on communication, expands upon his comic-strip/thought-bubble motif with his use of familiar materials like

steel, wax, electricity, found objects, linoleum and air. Under Myatt’s watch the form is turned as many ways as possible while still remaining immediately recognizable.

Combined with references of his complex Southern background and interest in the suggestion of a narrative that is, once visually unraveled, both witty and provocative, the

Artist ignites a storm of conversation for the viewer without actually spelling anything out.

A new central component in Myatt’s work is his use of light to implement the idea of ‘closure’; a gestalt principle that takes advantage of the placement of seemingly absent

forms within an artwork so that the viewer completes the work in the mind. Shafts or planes of light take on various forms such as color to complete what initially appears to

be negative space. For him, the act of conversation is important – not just the words.

steel, bees wax and air, 2014, 14x10x2”

BEAM

KIT REUTHER

oil and silverleaf on canvas, 2014, 54x54”

CORNFIELD

Although a life long-long artist Kit Reuther considers herself a self-taught painter and sculptor. She began her official art career in the early 1990s, after working in retail display. Her initial body of work was of realistic objects, rendered in a very minimal palette. Experimentation quickly pointed her toward dissolving recognizable objects, and later to large mark-oriented paintings, and now to more minimal collages with simple drawing and paint applications. Comparison of her work is often made to Louise Nevelson, in terms of piecing shapes, and to the mark making of Cy Twombly.

While experimenting with painting Reuther has continually combined objects to create sculpture. She found a welding instructor, befriended wood carvers, and started to work with bigger tools - some even involving electricity and gasoline. Now she hacks, carves, finished wood into elegantly stretched totems that are reminiscent of tribal sculpture as well as the modernist sculptures of Alberto Giacometti. Reuther is also recognizable for her single-modeled heads. They are elemental in application, like Picasso’s flattening of figurative shapes yet powerful and monumental.

wood, paint and wax, 2013, 41x8x6

#1173-3D

RANA ROCHATencaustic on panel, 2013, 54x48

UNTITLED L819

encaustic on paper, 2012, 46x41”

UNTITLED L813Rana Rochat graduated from Rhode Island School of Design

with a degree in printmaking and painting. She headed to New York and sold t-shirts on the street to make a living. That ballooned into a business she didn’t mean to have. She

wholesaled to stores in New York and Japan. Her designs were licensed and the living was good, especially with someone else

handling production. So she took a year to return to painting. That was twenty-something years ago and she hasn’t looked

back.

Her career is busy, with gallery representation in Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans, Charlotte, New York City, Boston, Sun

Valley and Seattle. Her encaustic paintings glow with the activity of loops and dots floating through a vast and subtle

background. Her method of thinly applying wax and paint to a panel allows more layering, and therefore more chance marks

and drips punctuate her large, abstract works.

PEGGY ROOT

oil on linen, 2013, 48x48”

ANDERSON FARM, DUSK


WINTER HILLSIDE

Peggy Root lives and works in the Appalachian foothills of northeastern Tennessee. Her work is a celebration of the peace and beauty found in nature. Her compositions are painted outdoors, paying careful attention to light conditions and seasons. Because of constantly changing light conditions, she is able to work on each canvas for no more than two hours at a sitting.

“Because nature is so complex and at the same time so beautiful on many different levels,” Root says, “landscape painting is both a joyful and humbling occupation. In a sense, a landscape painter is a reporter on the beauty of God’s world.” Root’s paintings, based in her American impressionistic training, convey not only a sense of location and condition, they are suggestive of an underlying poetic meaning found in the compositions.

ANNE SIEMS

acrylic on panel, 2013, 30x48”

CEREMONY SISTERS

Artist Anne Siems is inspired by the landscapes of her childhood in Germany. Using her remembered landscape as background, Siems creates

narrative paintings with a distinct time and place – but it is impossible to firmly discern when or where that place is. Her work can be described as

ancient, current, make-believe or post-apocalyptic. Often using a child-like figure as the centerpiece of a painting, her figures are dressed in

transparent clothing and surrounded by forest friends.

Summing up her work, Siems says: “At present, I continue with my interest in the human figure and the attributes that surround it. These attributes reflect something about the being without giving a specific

narrative. Ideas about life and death, sensuality, sexuality, nature, experiences in the realm of dreams, psyche and spirit are my ongoing topic.

A lot of inspiration for these pieces stem from my ongoing love for the art of the European Masters, Early American Folk Art, as well as vintage and

modern photography.”

acrylic on panel, 2013, 36x24”

YOST

JARED SMALL

oil on mylar, 2014, 28x21”

SMOKEY GRAY

Jared Small grew up in Memphis. He’s familiar with decaying homes and neighborhoods in the Southeastern region -- they’ve always captivated him. As neighborhoods undergo dramatic shifts in their socioeconomic makeup, the late Victorian houses have remained the same. The histories of the homes evolving with society fascinate the artist when dissecting each stoop, hinged screen door and A-line roof. Despite the countless facelifts to the exteriors over the years, the bones of the homes reveal solidity that is unrelenting.

Small harnesses a style similar to magical realism. The center of each painting focuses on a painstakingly accurate image of a house or individual while the background dissolves into abstract elements that devise an emotional and dramatic interpretation of the subject. This technique allows Small to hypnotize the viewer into a dream-like state, caught between the realities of the obvious image and the possible mysteries that lay beneath the surface.

oil on panel, 2014, 48x36”

BLUE LACE

JOHN TORINA


EARLY MORNING ON ZUMBRO RIVER

Torina is no stranger to the unknown. Since his teenage years, he has been on the road in some shape or form, first as a musician in a Rock n’ Roll band and finally as a visual artist, yet always exploring far-off countries and embracing new cultures.

Torina approaches painting in the same way. He paints on site in marshes, fields and coastlines along the Gulf Coast. Oftentimes Torina will drive aimlessly down a dirt road and discover the subtle beauty in the wetlands of the Georgia seaside or the amber grains in fields along Arkansas highways. He captures the scene as it is before him, but also innately translates the inexpressible feeling that comes along with it. The paint is applied in a heightened gesture that reveals impres-sionable landscapes and astonishing skies from sunrise to sunset. The contrasting colors of the green countryside and the open blue sky create a dramatic and impactful setting that resonates as much with him as it does with the viewer. It is an opportunity to escape into the unknown and understand the world’s natural splendor.


BLUE RIDGE SERIES 2

KELLY S WILLIAMSStemming from school memories, her time spent teaching, and her study of historic cabinets of curiosities, Williams investigates the imagery of her backyard and simple glass terrariums. The work reminds viewers to return to the childlike wonderment of both nature and imagination often dissipated with age and the realities of daily life.

The steps are straight from the instructions of the “How to Build a Terrarium” books and manuals themselves. Williams sketches the life-size tanks and then slowly builds the elements inside it. Others are oversized, characteristic of zoo houses, natural history displays, and amusement parks. The viewer can imagine the works on a dusty shelf or windowsill carefully harboring the natural marvels of life. The experience is both an admiration for the fantastical and the natural worlds that simultaneously surround us.


CRYSTAL BALL TERRARIUM


BOTANIC GARDEN III

TAD LAURITZEN WRIGHT


AM SHORTY STORY

graphite on paper, 2013, 90x66”

BEAUTIFUL SOUTHERN SPRAWL

In the same “Southern Casualist” vein as his recent exposes, Lauritzen Wright continues to adapt naїve forms and shocking color to shape a narrative referencing a return to understanding and expressing the fun of using paint – in any form and texture. “My “Southern Casualist” habits allow mistakes to be seen, reveal first thoughts and moves, while considering the subject as an equal to material application.”

“The cultural and classical idea of Bacchus (the Roman god of wine and excess) and his related frenzy takes the forefront of the Artist’s most recent body of work – familiar single line drawings and paintings, word finds and text paintings, all reveling in Bacchus, and thematic focus on classic examples of cultural excessiveness. Alongside his 2-D work, Lauritzen Wright tends to his ‘game player’ personality incorporating Bacchanalia installations: a beer pong table; a magic 8 ball disco ball; and painted cardboard building boxes that spell out debaucheries.

© 2014 David Lusk Gallery. The Gallery retain sole copyright to the contributions to this book.

4540 poplarmemphis

901.767.3800

516 Hagannashville

615.780.9990

davidluskgallery.com

David Lusk Gallery exhibits and sells art created by a talented group of artists – living in the Midsouth and beyond. The artwork at DLG defines the creative spirit, diversity and

excitement of our region.

DLG originally opened its doors in 1995 in Memphis with a commitment to exhibiting art that is well crafted, always intriguing, sometimes meditative and frequently thought

provoking. DLG’s unique program and vision have made it a recognized destination for what is current and important in art of the Southeastern US. The Gallery is located in the heart of East

Memphis, at Laurelwood.

In early 2014 the Gallery opened an outpost in Nashville in the happening Wedgewood/Houston Neighborhood.”

4540 poplar avememphis, tn 38117901 767 3800

gallery.comdavidlusk

516 hagan stnashville, tn 37203

615 780 9990

[email protected]

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Fall Catalogue 2014