I'm in an art show this weekend...

Posted by rick Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:04:00 GMT

Called “Connect 12”. From one of my friend Ben’s press releases:

Connect 12 exhibition at Dangenart Gallery:
From September 1 through September 30
Twelve Nashville artists will showcase their work at Dangenart Gallery.

Curator Ben Vitualla has invited Eric Denton, Jimi Benedict, Erika Johnson, Daniel Lai,Samantha Callahan, Sean Jewett, Rick Bradley, Alesandra Bellos, Tiffany Denton, Chris Hill, Andee Rudloff, and Shana Kohnstamm to present work of their own choosing alongside work of his own.
“As curator of this exhibition, my goal is to showcase local artists who have been a fixture in the Nashville visual arts community. This exhibition is an example of the importance of community in the Nashville visual art scene. As a result of years of exhibiting in Nashville, I have been impressed and surprised by the development and direction of local artists’ work. I have compiled a group of artists with varying disciplines, working in varied media. The first exhibition representing these diverse talents in city of Nashville will be called Connect 12,” Vitualla states.

The Nashville visual arts community has been steadily growing since 2000, partly because of the support of individual artists and privately owned galleries. Individual artists’ willingness to help each other with projects and exhibitions in Nashville have kept the visual arts community moving in an upward direction.

A group that was founded in 1991 and resurrected in 2002, the Untitled Artist Group, has given local artists opportunities to show their work in a welcoming and uncensored setting. Creative ideas are shared within this artist-run collective and many relationships formed between talented individuals with diverse backgrounds. Included in the group are painters, sculptors, mixed media artists, installation artists, and photographers. These individuals have worked together with varying degrees of experience from professional working artists to emerging artists paving their own way into the Nashville gallery scene.

Much like the Untitled Artist Group, the Connect 12 exhibition will consist of a diverse group of artists, ranging from a multi media artist who uses monitors, repetitive imagery and viewer participation; an installation artist whose work explores the female gender and topics in female relationships through photography and ephemera; a painter who creates beautiful paintings based on pain and healing; to a graphic designer who continues to work in an effort to make something the public will love and buy; a mixed media artist who reverts back to objects from childhood to capture back the lost youth and to relate the object to the problem of today; and an artist with a long family tradition of working with textile who create expressive fabric collages. Six additional artists working in diverse media round out the show.

“Creating an exhibition with twelve artists who work with various media will be a great undertaking and challenge because each artist has his or her own specific requirements and themes. I will take this challenge and create a show that will educate the viewer and define the visual artist as well as the visual arts community in Nashville,” says Vitualla.

For more information about Connect 12, the artists featured in the show, or Dangenart Gallery, please contact Ben Vitualla at connect.twelve@gmail.com or visit Dangenart.com


PRESS: TENNESSEAN: Downtown Dangenart Gallery celebrates friendship, growth

Connect 12
Exhibition runs September 1, 2007 to September 30,2007
Dangenart Gallery, Nashville, TN
224 – 234 5th Ave. N.
Suite 83 The Arcade
Nashville TN 37219