Come see vibrant paintings, contemporary craft, and graphic woodcut prints...

The Visual Arts Gallery presents the works of Nashville artist Susan Goshgarian McGrew. Whether painting mountain laurels, bubbling streams or the reflections of trees all of McGrew’s paintings feature amazing saturated color and demonstrate the vitality, movement and change that is present in natural settings. McGrew derives much of her inspiration through hikes around the Fiery Gizzard River in the Cumberland Plateau state park system. As she explores, she creates on-site watercolor and graphite studies that later transition into dynamic oil paintings.

On display in the East Wing and North Wing Gallery, are the woodcut prints of Dan Quest on loan from Joe and Laura Carrillo. In the 1970s, the Jack Daniel’s Distillery commissioned Quest to create a series of woodcut prints depicting the buildings and machine work of the distillery and nearby majestic town of Lynchburg, TN. For 14 years, visitors to the distillery would receive one of these prints in the mail as a commemorative gift. Quest’s prints carry a sense of nostalgia and help communicate the distiller’s commercial identity.

Maine-based artist, Deb Arter, understands that she is a creature of habit. Habits or personal rituals include cooking meals, washing dishes and doing laundry as well as other women’s crafts such as weaving, sewing and crocheting. Arter uses all of these mundane activities as a way to make artwork, which calls attention to domestic labor. She uses a diversity of materials, such as bacon, soap and felt to create contemporary sculptures that question gender roles, stereotypes, excess, waste and more.