Take a Dip in the Tinney
As another spout of torrid dog days settles in on Nashville, the folks at Tinney Contemporary Art Gallery have curated Let’s Go Swimming, a “summertime group exhibition,” described as an “oasis,” or a lasting “mirage” that serves as an antidote to the long, “hot summer of the southern gothics.” I stopped by the opening reception, during the July’s 2nd Saturday Art Crawl, which was busy and fun, but not crazy. The Tinney Contemporary Gallery, founded in 2006 by Susan Tinney, has specialized in collectible contemporary works by local and global arts, often, it is said, with a penchant for abstract expressions from female artists. With this exhibition they have remained true to form in a show that is nearly as exhilarating as a cannonball into Percy Priest. However, in contemporary art, especially the abstract, an antidote to the gothic may be difficult to obtain.
Yanira Vissepó, a Puerto Rican artist living and working in Nashville, contributed to the exhibition a series of striking still life works that engage in canvas dyeing and staining which seem to bring recognizable native plants into strange but beautiful landscapes. Her Heat that Feels Like Dying (Echinacea) seems set on a sunny day, by a blue body of water, but the intersection of reds, blues, and greens that Edvard Munch so loved, and the flying tea leaves, both bespeak something mortal; a death empowered by the constant transition of nature. The “living’s easy,” here, but there is darker underbelly—it brings to mind Sublime’s dual meaning gothic lyric: “the tension is getting hotter, I’d like to hold her, head under water…”
Brooklyn-based Esther Ruiz contributed minimalist sculptures built from mirrors and neon light, engaging with the dynamics and colors of Pop Art, yet they manage to invite the sentiments of the Romantic reflection of self. Practically, one can see this work as a fun thing, a practical artwork for the house, a perfectly acceptable reason to have a mirror in your living room. As contemporary art it seems to be a statement on the modern conception of the self-image, the “selfie” (the mirror’s reflection) is highlighted, contextualized, even beautified by the neon context.
However, the work and its filter exist in the foreground, while the middle ground and the background (deep into the mirror) are frustratingly constant. No matter how closely one peers into Well XLI, and no matter how bright the pink light shines, it will always be the viewer and their life staring back. The reflected subject retains no agency and must succumb (and drown?) in their own context. There are precedents; Hamlet’s poor, mad Ophelia, “incapable of her own distress” and who sang “…her melodious lay to muddy death.” Or Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl. who would rather sink than call Brad for help. Look as you’d like at Well XLI, but don’t fall in!
Sophia Belkin’s abstract Night Swim was one of the most exciting works of the exhibition. Its angles, colors, obfuscations, and swirling patterns delightfully teased as they avoid any specificity. The various textures, patterns and blurred dye seem, in an almost cubist echo, to depict the whole of a night swim in one glance. Yet it holds a layering of these aspects that create a (false?) perspective of depth within an unfathomable whole-it’s just beautiful. This seems to be a visual expression of Michael Stipe’s difficulty with the moon, “that bright, tight forever drum, [which] could not describe Nightswimming.”
Chicago artist Megan Greene’s beautiful line drawings feature warm inviting colors that seem to create a tension with the sublime and astonishing (in Burke’s sense) line work she employs in their execution. Wellnigh pixelated by hand, Greene has described her drawings as having a “…sort of a cataclysmic quality (just without the devastation).” This detail is exacerbated by the diminutive size of her canvas—4×5 inches. One leans in, almost subconsciously, as if seeking to be lost in the forest for the trees. In her 19, which is featured in the exhibition, I can’t decide if I am seeing a wave crash on a beach, or a flower erupt into a winter landscape (really, I don’t think either could be true?) but the beauty is indeed cataclysmic.
Finally, Elise Thompson’s abstract works add a transparency to their layered textures. Otherworldly and eerie (sea?)-scapes may or may not be referential, leading through damp, swamp like darkness towards a distance view. In Drift, one senses a vista in the upper portion but an enclosure in the lower, the curved horizontal lines give the sense of corroded bars or ship’s rails beaten by the primordial waves of the foreground. In the middleground the glowing green unites the two worlds even as they carry separate textures. Overall, the title’s effect on the expression is to leave one simultaneously unmoored and unfettered.
I’ve been to see the exhibition at Tinney twice now, and each visit brings new ideas. Gallery Director Joshua Bennett is to be commended for curating a wonderful exhibition that has proven an antidote to the dog day doldrums. Also, the Spotify playlist given with the exhibition is a discovery unto itself! The exhibition runs through August 16th, and I look forward to seeing it again, you should see it too.
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Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.
