This new body of work is born from loss, love, nature and personal growth - peppered with Western influences creating characters that appear as if she breathed life into a cowboy cartoon. Bright vibrant colors are a hallmark of her creations mixed with bold patterns that echo the work of Southwest Native American pottery as well as contemporary works of the Memphis Art Movement. Having graced our corner shelves for two consecutive Wayne White exhibitions, it is a sincere joy to welcome a handful of small scale sculptures of Wayne’s to the shelves in compliment to our first Ash Atterberry solo. Show Dates: June 4-25, Opening Reception: June 4, 2022, 6:00-9:00p

KEAVY MURPHREE + SPRING RETURN + SHOW DATES: MAY 7-28

Keavy Murphree's Spring Return sees a push into otherworldly, botanic vessels, lamps, and large scale ceramic furnishings. Her drive to explore and experiment with form pushes the medium to its limits. Spring Return strives for the positive and optimistic while acknowledging society's collective struggles.

Murphree opened her studio in 2018 after more than a decade working in design and product management. She received her B.F.A. in industrial design from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and now lives and works in Nashville, TN, with her family.

MARK TODD Love Songs

August 7th - September 25th, 2021

opening reception, August 7th, 6:00 - 9:00p

Internationally beloved artist and illustrator, Mark Todd has created a series of ceramic cassette tapes, records, and floral abstracts for his first JMG solo. The opening reception will feature our pal Jemina Pearl spinning records on the porch from 6-9p.

MARK MULRONEY

FAMILY VALUES

Featuring sculpture by Elise Drake

Show Dates: August 1st - Sept 26th

HARRY UNDERWOOD

NEON BELIEVER

Featuring Dan Melchior and Ashley Atterberry ceramics

Show Dates: April 4th - May 30th

IN MEDIAS RES I JULIA MARTIN I featuring large scale collaboration with Levi Christiansen

February 1st - March 28th, 2020 Opening Reception: February 1st, 6-9p

BEVY 2019

June 1st - July 27th, 2019

ALEXIS SERIO
BRANDON MORRISON
CASEY CHRISTIANSEN IGNACIO MICHAUD
LEVI CHRISTIANSEN
MARCIA DRAYTON
MATT LORENTZEN
NUVEEN BARWARI
VERONICA LETO

The first of each year we open for submissions and select 9 artists to feature for our annual summer group exhibition, BEVY. Each year the crop of talent surprises me and this year is no exception.  We are pleased to welcome an incredibly diverse group of artists this year. 

PLAY

February 2nd - March 30th,2019

J. TODD GREENE
RACHEL GROWDEN
BRADY HASTON
JENNIFER HASTON
ALEX LOCKWOOD
TANYA POOLE
ALEXANDRA SARGENT

Including work by artists who value play and the role of playfulness in Art. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, sketchbooks, a quilt, costumes, pillows, and miniature food.

OPENING RECEPTION: 
Saturday, February 2nd / 6-9p

THE POWER OF 3

December 1st - January 29th,2018

JOSH ELROD 2018

MIXED EPISODES
October 5 - November 24, 2018 

OPENING RECEPTION: 
Friday, October 5th / 6-9p

Josh Elrod is a Nashville-based artist.  His process is anchored by experimentation and daily practice, which has resulted in a diverse body of work ranging from large-scale paintings to intimate drawings.  Through repetition and the physicality of painting and drawing his work becomes a meditative practice, unleashing and reiterating imagery and themes from his subconscious.  Several of Josh’s paintings take on a performative quality: a single contemplative gestural line executed with the artist’s non-dominant hand.  His recent body of work has varied from these single-stroke large-scale paintings to densely layered surfaces grappling with themes of chaos, sexuality, cartoon vernacular, cash machines, UFO sightings, orifices, creatures and masks: “a grotesque carnival of people, energy, machines and colors.”  Josh, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, has exhibited work in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville.

Josh relocated to Nashville from New York City after living there for nearly 20 years. The move prompted a resurgence in his creative output and the ability to work in a larger scale than ever before. Josh is an accomplished musician and performed in numerous dub, noise and pop groups; he also spent 10 years performing as a Blue Man in the critically acclaimed Blue Man Group. Josh and his wife Ivy are the founders and creative directors of Nashville’s conceptual design showroom, Wilder.

Artist Statement: 
Painting for me is disembodying, I aspire to become a conduit for some kind of hidden expression. I hope to transmit something of the spiritual experience I have of making the painting: a record of the act, its transitory existence. I’m drawn to the mystery of the cosmos, my inner life, the idea that there might be parallel and possibly overlapping realities and the comical vessels we inhabit. If I understood it at all, I probably wouldn’t make art, I’d just go fishing.

WHAT IS LOVE?

August 4 - September 29, 2018

BECCA JANE KOEHLER
MEGAN KIMBER
COURTNEY ADAIR JOHNSON
BIG FELLA
MERRILEE CHALLISS
JULIA MARTIN
HARRY KAGAN
LOUISA GLENN
MARLOS E'VAN
NOAH SATERSTROM
LORNE QUARLES
RACHEL BRIGGS
KATHY WARINER
HARRY UNDERWOOD
 

 OPENING RECEPTION: 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 4 / 6-9p

 
"What is Love?" is a diverse and thorough examination of the inexplicable thing that makes us all tick. 

ARTIST TALK

JULIA MARTIN WITH LAURA HUTSON OF WXNA

BEVY 2018

ANDREW WEIR
BEIZAR ARADINI
BILL MILLER
R. ELLIS ORRALL
JOHN PAUL KESLING
KEAVY MURPHREE
MEGAN WATKINS
RACHEL WAYNE
SHARAN RANSHI
TARA WALTERS
 

June 02 - July 28, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION:
SATURDAY, JUNE 02 / 6-9P

ABOUT THE SHOW:
This year's BEVY is a dizzying cocktail of emerging and mid-career artists with subject matters ranging from the gut-wrenching plight of Native Americans to the Prada man purse - the work is as diverse as the origins of the creators.  Please join us for an opening reception on June 2nd from 6-9p.
Ornament will be gracing us with a porch concert for your listening pleasure.  You can check them out on Spotify or your preferred platform.

ARTIST TALK

OLIVIA LEIGH MARTIN & NOAH SATERSTROM

ARTIFACTS OF RETURN

OLIVIA LEIGH MARTIN

April 7 - May 26, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION:
SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2018 / 6-9 P

ABOUT THE SHOW:
With this lush body of new work, Olivia Leigh Martin returns to her one true love: the landscape. Rich, dancing textures reveal the artist’s inner nomad. Rambling from the bayous of her native Louisiana to the beaches of New England, and the mountains of New Mexico to the misty glades of Scotland - these paintings interweave connections between the visual and the tactile, landing somewhere between memory and desire.

Through Artifacts of Return, Martin argues for a species of landscape painting that offers viewers a portal into the sensorial experience of the land itself. Thin runnels of translucent color, dry pigments scraped over pocked surfaces, and thatches of topographical paint allude to the physical conditions of the landscapes in which she works. More than that, these works examine the ways in which a landscape painting may also serve as a kind of talisman for a place, one in which the remembered sense of a place may become reality.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
I have a deep hunger to reach out and touch the land, and not let go. This is probably a neurosis rooted in the fact that my home state, Louisiana, loses about a football field of land per hour to coastal erosion. I was in college, working on a summer coastal painting project, when I realized that the places I was painting may not exist in the future. Some of them no longer do. It was through these experiences that the fervent desire to hold onto a place through my paintings took hold of me. 

Of course, this is total hubris. The landscape, being infinitely vast, is also by consequence infinitely ungraspable. A painting, on the other hand, is. Observations, whether from the color of the sky to the weight of the air, from the sandy feeling of the cracked earth to the rough whip of the wind against my face, can all be set into the DNA of the painting through material and mark. It is therefore through the portal of the painting that I invite others to enter the landscape. 

I am a return painter. What this means is that I return to the same places over and over again, like a moon orbiting a planet. Each time I return to the bayou estuaries of my childhood, or the gorge in New Mexico overlooking the Rio Grande, my understanding of that place is compounded. I like to return, reach out, and make the attempt to touch the land again.

CHEERS

HYPNAGOGIC

JULIA MARTIN

December 1, 2017 - January 27, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2017 / 6-9 P

ABOUT THE SHOW:
Julia Martin’s anticipated solo exhibition Hypnagogic, marks a turning point for the artist. Titled after the moments before sleep where hallucinations and inexplicable events are sensed, this show illuminates the subconscious voice, inviting viewers into conversation. Martin visually allows herself to break past reservations and ask important questions. Her style, freer and more animated than in past works, explores the concept of achieving clarity through relinquishing control.
As a hypnagogic event provides a glimpse into the subconscious, this exhibition introduces a refreshingly unrestrained portrayal of an artist seeking truth.

OPENING NIGHT:
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Larissa Maestro has composed a piece of original chamber music to accompany the first thirty minutes of our opening reception for Hypnagogic.
The performance will take place promptly at 6:15p.  Players will circulate among viewers for a truly unique audio-visual experience. Attendees are asked to arrive at 6:00p sharp, silence their phones, grab a glass of champagne and immerse themselves into what is sure to be a magical and memorable evening. Post performance, opening reception continues until 9:00p with refreshments provided.
 

YARD SALE

Devin Goebel

October 6 - November 11, 2017

OPENING RECEPTION:
OCTOBER 6, 2017 / 6-9 P

ABOUT THE SHOW:
Devin Goebel is a Dadaist at heart with his playful spirit evident in everything he creates. The sophistication with which he consistently turns logic on its head is something to behold. Goebel's work turns the most mundane of cast-aside objects into comically oversized, elegantly simplified, works of genius. 
Yard Sale, his first solo exhibition at JMG, unites viewers in an absurd and wonderful dream, reminiscent of a classic thrifty hunt. The kind filled with all too familiar cast-offs: the old “Mr. Coffee” coffee maker seen seeking refuge on the bottom shelf of virtually every thrift store in America, that vase you've encountered at so many yard sales, or an old brass lamp so commonplace it has become invisible.
Goebel's re-imagination of these routine baubles and signs will make you feel a little like Alice stepping through a thrift-ed looking glass.

CLICK HERE to see work from the show.

CONNECTING THROUGH CLAY

Audry Deal-McEver
Caroline Cercone
David Taylor
Eric Botbyl
Jenn Cole
John Sellberg
Jon Donovan
Julia Whitney Brown
Meghan Borland
Melodie Grace
Quentin Owens
Sara Wiggins

October 7 - November 11, 2017

OPENING RECEPTION:
OCTOBER 7, 2017 / 6-9 P

ABOUT THE SHOW:
Twelve regional artists have created handmade vases to help bring people together through this interactive art experience. Connecting Through Clay will run October 7th through November 27th at Julia Martin Gallery, opening as part of American Craft Week, Tennessee Craft Week, and the Wedgewood/Houston Art Crawl.
Participants are encouraged to purchase a vase and in 30 days give it away. The person receiving it should be someone you would not normally give a gift to - a long lost friend or relative; someone with opposing religious beliefs or political views; someone from a different socioeconomic group, racial background, or sexual orientation, etc... The recipient will enjoy the vase for another 30 days, then give it away again to a third person who keeps the vase forever and hopefully shares the story.  Each owner is encouraged to do so and start conversations to help bring people together.

CLICK HERE to see work from the show.
 

EN JOINTE

Ola Mai
Black by Maria Silver
Any Old Iron
Gypsy Cliff Creations
Opium

September 2 - 23, 2017

OPENING RECEPTION:
SEPTEMBER 2, 2017 / 6-9 P

CLOSING RECEPTION:
SEPTEMBER 23, 2017 / 12-6 P

SEPTEMBER GALLERY HOURS:
WED - SAT / 12-6 P

This month we hand over our space to these five incredible local fashion designers and makers. September 2nd, coinciding with the Wedgewood Houston Artcrawl, will kick off a month long Designer Pop-Up for you to come spruce up your Fall wardrobe. Opening night will feature the DJ stylings of DJ DOUG. A multi-sensory experience involving music, video, fashion illustration, scented goodies and a limited edition "Mixer Elixer" by Bang Candy Co. make this an event not to be missed.

FEATURING:

Ola Mai
OM Website
Designed by Leslie Stephens, Ola Mai is produced in Nashville, Tennessee. Exuding elegance and flow the Ola Mai line inspires every woman to express herself freely and with great joie de vivre. 

Black by Maria Silver
BBMS Website
Ethically and locally produced in Nashville, with her carbon foot print in mind, Dominican-American designer Maria "Poni" Silver started BBMS in 2011. Black by Maria Silver specializes in contemporary women's streetwear that combines urban nonchalance with easy glamour. Designed for the modern voyager, BBMS uses mostly recycled and overstock fabric providing a travel-ready wardrobe for the woman with effortless magnetism and attitude. 

Any Old Iron
AOI Website
Any Old Iron is a music inspired Rock n Roll clothing line designed by Andrew Clancey out of East Nashville. Focusing on men and women's tailoring with a twist, Clancey's collections aim to bring out that inner rock star. 

Gypsy Cliff Creations
GCC Website
Lovingly embellished up-cycled denim jackets designed by Nashville’s very own Sandra Costa.

Opium
Opium Website
Designed by Laura Citron, Opium is a Nashville based clothing brand for all the Disco Dolls!

Shelby Rodeffer is a Chicago-based painter and commercial artist who will contribute her gorgeous "Honesty" banner (available for purchase). Raised in Nashville, Tennessee, she embraces the human hand in both her personal and professional work. Inspired by folk art and traditional sign making as a means of communication, Rodeffer combines the two creating a practical form of artistic expression. Look for her magical touch in numerous public art projects.

Kat Ryals's Holographic & three dimensional Disco Orbs will be a dreamy visual element this month, along with a spectacular video installation based on her otherworldly body suits. 

And last but not least, video artist and improvisational dancer, Laura Cavaliere will grace us with a few of her spontaneous dance pieces along with a beautiful video installation opening night.

BEVY is Julia Martin Gallery's annual summer group exhibition, showcasing some of the best up-and-coming local and regional artists.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS & THEIR WORK:

The central piece to Brett Douglas Hunter’s work for this show is a truly bizarre and wonderful self portrait based on a painting his mother made of him in 1984. Brett comes from a long line of artists that have instilled a deep love of creativity and freedom in him. These recent works pull directly from those family ties.

Clint Colburn works in a variety of mediums ranging from painting and sculpture to photography and collage, sandwiching just about everything in between. His work is visceral and non-formulaic. He describes it as the harnessing, channelling and release of energy. 

Georganna Greene, seeking visual and historical balance on a personal level, has created an achingly beautiful body of abstract paintings that explore energy, renewal, memory and familiarity. 

John Paul Kesling works intuitively. His paintings house luscious textures built up over many chaotic layers of rich, free wheeling brush strokes. Somehow the finished product is always a cohesive wonder of otherworldly magic.

Kelly Ahrens’s drawings illustrate an alternate universe ruled by her alter ego, das Feuergod. Each drawing has been screen printed to create a graphic quality, making each piece feel like a bulletin from another dimension. “Feuergod is an inhabitant of OZIII, a world that lives on the other side of ours. Like most works that come out of OZIII, Tears Of Fire celebrates the grotesque and the negative. Where You see black, they see white.”

Kevin Reilly’s new work explores the imprints left on his psyche by a Roman-Catholic upbringing and the belief systems attached to the saints that still influence the mind of a non-practicing Catholic and self-proclaimed non-believer. As part of a larger effort to understand these ties, Reilly has created a few of his own saints.

Olivia Leigh Martin works in oil on stainless steel to explore the intersections where memory meets fantasy. Referencing old knick-knacks, family photos and the lush Louisiana landscape of her upbringing Martin’s paintings are a whirlwind of abstraction, gently tethered to reality by these talismans.

Rebecca Blevins’s ceramic sculpture work began as purely functional; cups, bowls and everyday objects. Her newest body of work is an exploration in assemblage and elevated objects. Each piece is all at once sleek, playful and elegant.

JESSI ZAZU'S STATEMENT: When my radiation oncologist asked me to create artwork for the room where I had received brachytherapy radiation, I was honored, but I also felt a great responsibility. I thought about the challenges I had faced before ever reaching the room, and how every woman who ends up there has already survived a long and sometimes painful journey. I remember the anxiety that ran through my mind during the first session. My eyes darted around the room, looking for something to help me gain mental footing to get through. All I could find were a few security cameras, beige wallpaper and outdated paintings. The session only lasted eight minutes, but I felt isolated. I was alone in a lead-lined room, hooked up to a powerful machine with lots of lights and noises. I brought my sketchbook in with me a few times, and even though I was partially immobile during the radiation, I laid back and drew everything I could see. Making art helped me get through that experience, and I created these pieces to give hope to anyone who spends time in the room after me. 
A wise woman once asked me, "Do you know what self-efficacy is?" I didn’t, but when I learned that it meant believing in one’s ability to succeed, I realized I needed to nurture it in myself. In that moment, I chose to see beyond my personal series of unfortunate events and connect to the human condition. Life happens to all of us, we all face challenges and setbacks. It is how we react that defines us. We have a lot more power than we think we do. We also have a lot less power than we think we do. Fighting cancer has been an education in knowing when to push back and when to surrender. By choosing positivity and love at every corner, I decided to triumph, even in my own defeats. 

KATHY WARINER'S STATEMENT: We found out a year ago that Jessi was sick, quite a shock. I decided from the start that I had two choices, to be positive or to be negative. We spent the whole year trying to stay up and keep distracted. Jessi had a studio at one end of the house and I had mine at the other end. The experience [of Jessi’s illness] was getting so intense that I started painting in every spare moment I had. It wasn’t long before my nightmares and sleepless nights went away. My attitude was better and I could breathe. My art became about healing and not feeling hopeless, and about celebrating life.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL PIECES IN THE SHOW.

UNDEFEATED is made possible by the generosity of Midtown Printing, Woodcuts Framing Gallery and Kangaroo Press.
 

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“The Void and the Eye” represents my desire to make conscious the awareness that everything is connected. The void represents the unconscious and the eye represents conscious awareness. I feel, acutely, the pain of being separated from my ancestors and the spirit world, the pain of separation from nature, etc., and I am trying to heal that wound in myself through my work. My inner world is a visionary world, and draws from many traditions, archetypes and symbols.
Shadow work, the collective unconscious, facing our own darkness, protection, the power of love, finding balance, and WATER are themes for many of the mixed media works. What we are seeing in our own lives and on the world stage is this struggle of “dark versus light” made manifest. This “wetiko” energy threatens to subsume us, but it also is what is waking us up. We must use our creative potential – our imagination is our greatest human asset – to consciously evolve and envision a better world.

ABOUT THE EYES:

The protective eye, evil eye, or nazdar has many roots in ancient cultures and traditions from around the world. The eye is a symbol of conscious awareness. The eye looks out and says “I see you” while at the same time the seeing eye is being “seen.” This observer / observed dynamic generates a reciprocal energetic relationship of viewer to the eye, creating a feedback loop- in this case one of positive energy. Energy follows thought. All of our thoughts matter. Thoughts become our reality. Everything is connected in cosmic conscious awareness – we are one family. Or as Einstein puts it: “Field before particle.”
These eyes are meticulously constructed with mostly sequins, and as most of the sequins are placed one at a time by hand, the work itself becomes a form of meditation. Each eye has it’s own inner eye – a mirror in the center – to extend the idea that these are pieces intended for meditation and reflection.
I chose to work with sequins because they reflect light and are fairly easy to control. Each small, dazzling dot becomes something more, something substantive, when it aggregates into a bigger whole. Just as a lone individual may feel powerless in their actions, many people aligned to a specific purpose, can collectively accomplish anything.

A portion of the proceeds of the sale of each eye will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dunson is a prominent figure in Nashville's art community and a true painter's painter. Each artist handles material - both studio and ethological - in a way that speaks to the other. In this case, quite literally. This exhibition brings these two accomplished mid-career painters together to participate in groundbreaking visual dialogue. Samuel's piece, a direct response to Noah's "In Times of War", will be revealed on opening night along with a number of collaborative works on paper.

SEE ALL WORKS HERE

HOLT ARTIST STATEMENT

Each crusty layer of paint contains a composition that will never be seen.  Intentionally covered up by either frustration or a flurry of gestural marks, these sheets of colors, patterns and shapes are embedded in the wood grain waiting to be revealed.  A flathead screwdriver and an etching needle scribe replace the soft brushes for the excavation.   While using these tools to dig channels into the pigment, flakes of paint gather on each side of the line. Scrapping, scratching and sanding the surface fuse the coats of paint into unpredictable designs and textures.  It is within this blurry atmosphere that an imaginary world begins to take form. The environment and characters fade in and out as the images come into focus.   This vignette tells an open-ended story with clues buried and tucked within the thick oily residue. I am inspired the most by nature.  I love looking at trees, rocks, dirt and the creepy, crawly creatures that inhabit these lands.

SEIGENTHALER ARTIST STATEMENT

Having spent the past year building large scale processional puppets and participating in the Nashville International Puppet Festival, there is no doubt that the “puppet” has entered my psyche. After a long hiatus of working primarily in mixed media, my return to ceramics has found me staring back at clay heads resembling the puppet. I wonder why? It is hard to let them go.  Puppets, material objects, contain and express things of mind and spirit, often controlling those who seem to control them. My newly expanded understanding of the puppet leads me to believe in the spirit that emerges during its construction. Imagining the puppet serves as a metaphor and a tangible expression of what it means to be human.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Exploring the realms of painterly abstraction, Reynolds and Murphy both create complex, visual narratives. Murphy's sculptural prints and multimedia works use texture and illusion to create immersive environments, while Reynolds' paintings are organic mathematical reflections of personal mythologies and responses to both natural and man-made experiences.

CLICK HERE FOR ERIN MURPHY'S WORK   /   CLICK HERE FOR VICTORIA REYNOLDS WORK