at the Red Arrow
LeXander Bryant’s ‘Dirt Road Baby’
LeXander Bryant is an Alabama-born, contemporary artist of Nashville whose work deeply engages with notions of identity, memory, and place. In Dirt Road Baby, his exhibition currently at Red Arrow, Bryant turns his lens toward the South, exploring what it means to belong—to a lineage, to a history, and to a geography that is as emotionally resonant as it is physically rooted. For Bryant, the South is more than a location: it’s “a rhythm, a memory, a lineage, and a portal to a wider world.”
Thus, at its heart, Dirt Road Baby seems to be a meditation on Southern identity. Bryant uses photographs, objects, and storytelling to trace a personal and cultural journey through the rural landscapes that shaped his sense of self. The exhibition is not just documentary; it’s deeply poetic. Those “dirt roads” in Bryant’s work serve as metaphors in the way they are both literal paths and symbolic maps of memory, heritage, and transformation.
One of the most compelling aspects of the show is its exploration of cultural value beyond mainstream narratives. Bryant challenges the dominant stories about the South by highlighting experiences and ancestral connections that often go unrecognized. Through his lens, the dirt roads become portals to understanding resilience, history, and the legacy of those who came before.
Bryant’s work in Dirt Road Baby is also multifaceted. While photography is central, the show also incorporates objects and narrative elements in the content of the photography, weaving together visual imagery with material culture into a layered, almost cinematic narrative. These objects might include family heirlooms, personal artifacts, or found items that evoke memory and place. As Bryant phrases it, the exhibition is about “finding oneself in the landscape of the South.” In doing so, it invites viewers to reflect on how environment and memory shape identity—and how individuals carry that lineage forward.
An excellent example of this is Bryant’s I Am Who I Have Always Been (2025). The photograph (and title) clearly suggests themes of continuity and self-acceptance. In the background, the vintage and torn wallpaper and the ill-hung window covering suggests a long worn past laden with challenges, but the sunshine’s yellow light seems to somehow communicate southern. The subject, sitting in the classic Renaissance pyramid is centered and creates a strong stability while directing our eyes to the boy’s silhouetted face. The face is a forward facing Rückenfigur, looking right at you. As tradition would have it, the Rückenfigur is a placeholder for the viewer, but given this subject’s youth and posture, in compels a narrative: Is he sitting in judgement of his (our) adult selves or merely in observance? That might be for the viewer to decide. It is a powerful and beautifully composed image.
The physical space, Red Arrow Gallery, an accessible, edgy, gallery in Nashville, serves as an important bridge between Bryant’s rural, memory-laden imagery and an urban audience. The exhibition brings those dirt roads into a contemporary art context, prompting city dwellers and art-goers to consider how the rural and the past continue to inform the urban, present. It creates a dialogue: visitors coming into the gallery can engage with the South not just as a geographic or nostalgic idea, but as a living, evolving cultural landscape. It would be difficult to overemphasize the relevance of this. In a time when conversations about identity, place, and history are increasingly central and controversial within the cultural discourse, Dirt Road Baby reminds us that heritage isn’t monolithic, and that the rural South contains stories that are rich, complicated, and vital.
Dirt Road Baby the solo exhibition by photographer LeXander Bryant, is currently on display at Red Arrow Gallery, located at 919 Gallatin Ave, Suite #4, Nashville, TN. The show runs Now through December 20.
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