Coming soon to Green Hills:
Bennett Galleries’ Fall Showcase: Light, Memory, and Season in Dialogue
This autumn, Nashville’s Bennett Galleries turns its Green Hills space into a convergence zone for three painters whose work is bound by atmosphere, memory, and a profound response to the natural world. On Saturday, October 18, 2025, from 6:00-8:00 PM, Fall Showcase will bring together Scott E. Hill, Linda Ledet, and Charlotte Terrell, in a reception promising to explore the liminal spaces between rendered landscape, spiritual gesture, and decorative reverie. Yet, to appreciate Fall Showcase is also to appreciate the gallery that hosts it. Since its establishment in 1978, Bennett Galleries has carved a niche in Nashville’s art scene as a place where contemporary fine art and traditional craftsmanship meet in equal measure.
The Artists and works in Fall Showcase
The strength of this exhibition lies in how different yet complementary the three artists are. Below are portraits of their work along with specific paintings that will set the mood of the show.
Scott E. Hill – Memory, Landscape, the Whispered Past
A native of Northwest Georgia, Hill’s work often evokes halfway-remembered scenes — overgrown fields, dusk skies, distant woods. One particular painting that will anchor his contribution is Hunter’s Moon (oil on board, 5″ × 5″). Though quite small, Hunter’s Moon packs a visual punch: layered glazes suggest soft moonlight filtering through shifting clouds, dark silhouettes of trees or perhaps hills in the distance. The glazed treatment blurs the detail and provides the canvas the feeling of a memory, something seen once, and fading, but still vivid at an emotional level.
Also expected are somewhat larger works in his portfolio that use a muted color scheme: deep siennas, cool greys, touches of amber or ochre where light filters in. These larger works contrast the small panel in scale but deepen the emotional tone — the feeling of twilight, threshold moments, and nature’s edge. Hill’s pieces in this showcase will likely play with scale and intimacy, placing viewers close to detail in one work, then pulling them back in another, all unified by that sense of atmosphere and memory.
Linda Ledet – Spiritual Gesture and Luminous Form
Ledet brings something more overtly expressive and transcendent to the mix. Her large oil painting A Capella (50″ × 40″) is a centerpiece: dramatic, intense, radiant. In A Capella, colors seem to glow from within —pale golds, soft blues, hints of rose or coral — all modulated with a brush that is both sure and full of reverence. The strokes may be broad, sweeping, but also layered, textured; the surface has a luminosity, as if light were not just falling on it, but emerging out of it.
In addition, Ledet often includes works that feel like meditative acts: bright colors explode powerfully into the canvas’s space, emerging like a stained-glass window at dusk. Viewers may find in her pieces a tension between the sacred and the everyday: See Grace and Glory for example, where spiritual longing feels anchored in tactile surfaces and physical presence.
Charlotte Terrell – Decoration, Surface, and Imagined Landscapes
Terrell works where landscape meets decorative surface. Trained in landscape architecture and decorative arts, she builds her scenes with plaster, glazes, oil, and polished finishes on panels. One painting likely to draw attention is Sundry Mood (30″ × 24″, mixed media on panel). In Sundry Mood, the glaze gives translucent color; forms—hills, trees, sky—are somewhat abstracted, shaped, elegant, reminiscent of gardens or terraces and atmospheric horizons. The effect is dreamlike, meditative, and decorative.
Another Terrell work in the show Far More Deep (48”x36”, mixed media on panel) has surfaces so finely tuned that they almost become reliefs: shadow in shallow grooves; light that catches both texture and plane. These pieces ask the viewer to not only see but to feel surface: layers of material, depth in paint, the transforming effect of the finish.
Why Fall Showcase Matters
This exhibition is more than a grouping; it’s an exploration of contrast and consonance. Below are key themes that make Fall Showcase relevant for art lovers and for the larger conversations in contemporary painting:
- Memory & Time: Hill’s reflective work, Terrell’s imagined landscapes, and Ledet’s spiritual gestures all draw in the past — geological past, personal past, spiritual past — refracted through contemporary media and light.
- Surface & Technique: The materials matter: glazes, plaster, oil, layering. Terrell’s decorative surfaces, Hill’s glazing, and Ledet’s brushwork each show how technique becomes meaning in itself.
- Scale & Intimacy: Small works demand close viewing; larger works demand viewer’s presence. The show will move you back and forth between introspection and awe.
- Seasonal Mood: Autumn’s turning—light growing softer, shadows longer, colors shifting—acts almost as an uncredited curator. These works will feel especially resonant in fall, when light itself softens, when our senses tune toward texture, warmth, dusk.
- Community & Continuity: Bennett Galleries’ long history means this isn’t just a first time show; this is part of a continuum of art in Nashville. Under Elizabeth Perkins’ ownership, the gallery continues to cultivate local art, nurture emerging artists, while preserving craft (framing, materials, tradition). Fall Showcase participates in that history.
The Reception & Viewing Experience
The reception, from 6:00-8:00 PM, offers more than just a first look. It’s perhaps a moment to meet the artists, talk technique, see surfaces in changing light, hear the stories behind motif choices. Bennett Galleries has always placed value on the experience of art: not just what hangs on the wall, but how someone stands before it, how framing choices catch the light, how scale and texture change in ambient evening light. Importantly, while one of the most successful galleries in Nashville, Bennett is very approachable for those looking to introduce themselves to the scene, and perhaps begin investing in the arts
For collectors, this is a chance to see new works, to discuss commissions, to engage with a gallery deeply embedded in Nashville’s arts community. For designers, this is the place to find works that combine decorative appeal with serious painterly concern. Whether you arrive drawn by the quiet mystery of a small moonlit sky, the radiant sweep of spiritual color, or the decorative textures of imagined landscapes, you will leave carrying something of autumn with you: a memory of light, surface, and painterly presence. For more information, see https://www.bennettgalleriesnashville.com/ Exhibitions at Bennett typically last a month, so make sure you visit before we get too deep into November!
Bennett Galleries: A Brief Institutional Portrait
Bennett Galleries, located at 2104 Crestmoor Road in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, is a family-rooted institution. Originally founded by the mother-son duo Bess and Bill Bennett the gallery developed from a framing shop into a full-service fine art gallery showing both emerging and established artists, local, regional, and international.
In 2019, the gallery underwent a leadership transition: Bill Bennett retired, and long-time manager Elizabeth Perkins became the new owner. Perkins, with decades of experience at Bennett Galleries, retains much of the gallery’s character — its strong framing tradition, its commitment to original works, and its relationships in the local art community — while bringing in new energy and vision.
Bennett Galleries is also well known for its dual role: as a gallery showing painting, sculpture, ceramics, works on paper; and as a framing shop offering archival framing and a ready-made frame selection. It’s a place where interior designers, art collectors, and casual art lovers converge.
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Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.
