Gallery Hours
Thursday and Friday 11 - 5
Saturday 11 - 3
Join us the first Saturday of every month
6 to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Gallery Crawl!
Previous Exhibits 2008
Home | News | Exhibits | Upcoming Exhibits | Previous Exhibits | Press | Space | About | Contact | Site Map
Copyright © 2007 Twist Art Gallery  -   All Rights Reserved
Website by
Plume Productions
Mandy Rogers Horton
Rocky Horton
December 2008

Living and working in Nashville, TN since 2003, Mandy Rogers Horton
studied visual arts at Anderson University, IN, The Chautauqua
Institute, NY, and American University, Washington DC. As an army
brat and student she has been fortunate to travel in Europe including
extended stays in Germany, Ireland, and Italy.  Such travels have left
her with a fascination with culture and languages. Drawing and
painting function as one language through which to search,
contemplate and respond to the world around her. Rogers Horton also
teaches studio art and art history courses at local universities including
Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, and Watkins
College of Art and Design.  She lives in Nashville with her husband,
artist, Rocky Horton.

Rocky Horton is Assistant Professor of Art at Lipscomb University in
Nashville Tennessee. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from
Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Then, after a two-year stint as
an English teacher in Italy, he continued his education in the graduate
program at West Virginia University where he received his M.F.A. In
studio art in 2003. He actively makes and exhibits work nationally. He
has adjudicated several high school, college, and professional level
exhibitions. He has participated in panel discussions and conference
presentations. Recently, he was awarded an independent research
grant from Lipscomb
University.

Duncan McDaniel's images feature complex repetition of shapes and
distorted figures rendered with an overall singular technique. His
organic, sensuous textures invoke a dreamlike familiarity within each
piece.  He explores themes such as childhood nostalgia, vivid sexuality,
and the relationship between light and colors.

In 2006 McDaniel graduated from the Savannah College of Art and
Design, receiving a BFA in Painting with a minor in Illustration. Duncan
has exhibited in cities including Savannah, Georgia, Lacoste, France,
and Nashville, Tennessee. He currently lives and works in Nashville.

Statement
This particular series of drawings concern such themes as structure,
transformation, conception, consumption, and decadence, all of which
are present in the multifaceted transformation of wine as it advances
from grape to bottle to mouth. This series consists of rendered
versions of yeast and taste buds perceived from a microscopic
viewpoint in order to accentuate the imperceptible phenomenon critical
to the making and tasting of wine. These meticulously crafted drawings
celebrate the secret life of this unique beverage, one that most of us
have been underestimating since 6000 B.C.



Tara Murino-Brault and Ulana Zahajkewycz
November 1 – 29, 2008

Tara Murino-Brault
received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the
Minneapolis College of Art and Design a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a printmaker and
educator who currently teaches at Portland Community College in
Portland, OR. Her work has been exhibited locally and nationally and
she is currently represented by Print Arts Northwest.

Monsters
Statement
"This body of work is based on the fears and monsters of my friends
and family.  As with most fears, some are fun and silly, some are scary,
and some are a combination of both.  All are examples of our active
imaginations.  A few of these pieces are combo-monsters – for
example, in “Bird of Prey” I combined my fear of flying with a friends
fear of birds pecking her eyes out.  In another, the boogey man is in
the closet with spiders.  I hope none of them give you bad dreams
tonight."


Ulana Zahajkewycz
In addition to teaching illustration fulltime at the Minneapolis College of
Art and Design, Zahajkewycz has been freelancing in the illustration
field for over 15 years. Some of her clients include, the New York Times,
City Pages, Print, Girl’s Life, Top Shelf Comics, Runner’s World,
International Tattoo Arts, Select Comfort and the Sci-fi Network. She
has also extensively exhibited her work in various venues and galleries
in the Pacific Northwest, the New York metropolitan area and
Minnesota, including having work incorporated in the Small Wonders
and Little Giants exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.

Statement
"I primarily work with gouache, watercolor and ink, but have added
relief printmaking (woodcut, linoleum, and collagraphs) to my favorite
mediums. The subject matter of my personal work revolves around
dreams, nightmares, myths, tattoos, archetypes and the ever-present
battle of good and evil within all of us. I often try to incorporate some
of these subjects into my professional work, if I can. It works out if I
have a bit of freedom with the imagery that I’m creating. Over the
years, I’ve made a conscious effort to make my professional art as
close as possible to the art that I create personally."


October 4 - October 25, 2008
Drew Peterson: The Pinwheel Series

Artist Statement:
For much of the last year, the content of my work has revolved around
the appropriation and re-evaluation of a set of illustrative images used
in advertisements in the early 1900s. The meticulously drafted imagery
once functioned as relics of an industrious culture. I am aware of the
way these images are viewed, as nostalgic ephemera now rendered
obsolete.

In this series, the images pivot around a central axis point. Through an
intense combination of layers, the print begins to resemble a pinwheel
in motion. Illustrations that once functioned as fully recognizable
images now become compounded abstractions of their former selves.
The cyclical movement of the pinwheel symbolizes the resurrection of
archaic images through the process of appropriation.








September 6 - September 27, 2008
Irene Wills: Into the Garden

Twist became a walk through the garden with Wills' florals and garden
scenes on exhibit.

Saturday, September 6, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
One Night Only: Twist at 214 3rd Avenue
Process

TWIST GALLERY presents…Process, a one-night art happening
featuring Watkins students, faculty and alumni. Artists included: Kelly
Bonadies, Kristi Hargrove, Erin Plew, Nick Stolle, Terry Thacker, Iwonka
Waskowski, and John Whitten.

In addition, David Maddox, Amy Marcantel, and Joseph Hudson will be
performing as
Forest Bride.

Process Artist Statement:
Most work that ends up on the wall of a gallery is the finished product,
the end result of the artist’s process. It is at this point that the viewer
meets the work.  Process… is a show that invites the viewer to meet
with works in progress by artists on different levels of experience. If
there is one thing that connects the student artist, the professional
artist, the emerging or well established artist, is that no matter what
the skill level, the process, the journey they embark upon, is an
exciting and frustrating part in the experience of being an artist.
Pushing, pulling, testing, trying, discussing etc… are all part of the
artist’s process. In this show, we want to meet the viewer as part of
the journey, not as the end result. Become part of our process on
September 6th, 2008.—Iwonka Waskowski



August 2 - 30, 2008: Just Playing by Catherine Thompson

Artist Statement
This series seeks to wrestle with the problem of how I see and
interpret my childhood as I move farther and farther away from it.  
Memories are never precise, especially those we retain from our
earliest years.  Ultimately, we never stop playing the games of our
childhood.  But as we get older, they grow harsh, distant, and
mythical.  

Here, I use images from my personal past, pop culture, and the web to
create an impression of the confusing nature of childhood memory.  
The result, therefore, is an adult interpretation of an imaginative
world.  The format is similar to Japanese wood panels, and the images
have been painted over aged and stripped wallpaper to represent the
passage of time.  In this world of childhood games and characters, the
memories are inevitably colored by adulthood-made more provocative
and, therefore, more fantastic.





June 7 - July 26, 2008: Quinn Dukes
The Din of Culture

Watkins Graduate and a recent transplant to New York via Brooklyn,
Quinn Dukes returns to Nashville for an installation at Twist Art Gallery.

Artist Statement
"I am a continual observer, fascinated with human interaction and its
correspondence to wild life.  On my daily walks through the streets of
New York, I observe humans interacting with their “planned” natural
environment along with the consoling flight and behavior of reckless
pigeons. The pigeon represents that which is not contained in an
otherwise contained environment. As a southern native accustomed to
witnessing daily wildlife, the pigeon is now the substitute for the fawn
crossing the path.

Through the act of performance, my work offers a metaphorical
solution to a personal narrative, concerning the human / animal
experience amidst a natural and industrial environment. The work
presented in The Din of Culture presents the arduous struggle
between these co-existent dichotomies."



May 3 - May 31, 2008: Brady Haston

"The transformation of the American city continues to inspire and
inform the vocabulary of my recent work. Urban renewal and bland
gentrification fuel this changing landscape and crash into existing
neighborhoods resulting in an odd mix of signage, industrial forms,
architectural details, and materials.

This mix enters my work on both a conscious and subconscious level
providing an endless source of shapes and colors to compose with and
manipulate. At times, I feel that the resulting abstractions mirror this
process better than a purely representational depiction and capture
this change in progress.

The drawings for June and October are the first in a new series since
my move back from eight years in Chicago. The structures seen during
walks and drives through East Nashville inform the vocabulary of these
recent drawings and begin to lead my work into a more amorphous
place. These drawings foreshadow new directions in my work and
seem to be leading out of the narrow vein my paintings have occupied
for the past decade."

>See more of Brady's work




April 5 - 30, 2008: Rachel Clark Studies Within the Grid

I began painting, twenty-seven 6" x 10" wooden plaques, with the
intent to record the decay of a bouquet of flowers, and how
compositionally the formless dark shape of feces contrasts this idyllic
beauty. By combining the absurd themes of flowers and feces into a
larger grid, I intend to present a humorous reading of the history of
painting and the grid.  

The physicality of the paint and the dissolving form reference Abstract
Expressionist painting. The predominant male gender of Abstract
Expressionist painters and the absence of flowers as a subject
becomes another layer of content for me, a woman, working with the
gender of objects and mark making. While employing aspects of this
formal period of painting, I use small, kitschy, craft oriented wooden
plaques to suggest a sarcastic reading on the format of the grid. The
grid makes order out of chaos, but in this situation the grid is an
attempt to compartmentalize nature, death, decay, and waste. Much
like the exercise of a painting a day these plaques begin to make time
modular. The blooming flowers fade, die, and begin to rot. The feces, a
benign waste, sit within a jar growing mold. Each is a record of time.   



March 1 - 29, 2008: Rachel Hall Kirk
"The Big Payback"
 

Rachel Hall Kirk is a native Tennessean. She studied painting and
drawing at Austin Peay State University and The University of
Tennessee at Knoxville. Rachel was destined to be an artist from the
time she was old enough to pick up a pencil. She currently resides in
Ashland City and teaches art at Austin Peay in Clarksville.  

Artist Statement
Our society gives respect to people based on their status and position,
not based upon who they are as people. We do this because none of
us fully has control over our own destiny, and so we want to trust
those who we see in positions of authority. However, recent history
has shown that simply placing trust in someone doesn’t make them
good. In “The Big Payback” I turn the tables on those who are
normally given a free ride by exposing them for who they really are:
naked and scared, just like the rest of us.    



February 2 - 23, 2008: Scott Simontacchi and Julie Lee  

Two of Nashville's best musicians come together to create an exhibit of
visual art.  Performances will also take place during the gallery crawl
on Feb. 2 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.  

Scott Simontacchi
A well-respected member of Nashville's younger creative community,
Scott Simontacchi is a triple-threat songwriter, musician, and
performer. As a former member of the bluegrass group The Biscuit Boys
and as a solo artist, Scott has shared the stage or worked with Ricky
Skaggs, Ralph Stanley, Robert Earl Keen, Jim Lauderdale, Tony Rice,
Sam Bush, and Travis Tritt.  

Keeping in touch with a timeless perspective, the original songs are
honest, intermittently sarcastic, and always delightfully enigmatic. The
album also features a stellar lineup of Nashville's finest musicians,
including Tim O'Brien, Casey Driessen, Matt Combs, Mark Fain, Kevin
Post, and many more guest artists.  
More . . .  

Julie Lee
The life of Nashville-based singer/songwriter Julie Lee has always been
a lesson in assemblage art. She grew up in Maryland on a steady diet
of family stories, jazz and folk music, learning early the connection
between history and the creative act. The raw ability of music to
convey and preserve story mesmerized young Lee, as she watched
the world change amidst the timelessness of Ella Fitzgerald and James
Taylor.

Later, after earning an art degree, Lee delved into the world of visual
art, and found a creative home in the hammering together of rusty
junk sculptures. Taking wood and metal relics of history, Lee
reassembled them into something new and beautiful: timelessness
and change as sculpture. The old and new altogether. Continuity.

By this time, Julie Lee had relocated to Nashville, and was writing
music as well as creating visual art. Her Northern roots replanted, she
was experiencing for the first time the music of the South: bluegrass
and blues and Gospel sat alongside her experience of jazz and folk.
"Blues, bluegrass, and jazz to me are very similar," Lee discovered.
"It's all a basic structure, and people veer off of that to create these
amazing melodies with dissonance."  
Read More . . .


Previous Exhibits 2007

Previous Exhibits 2006
Rachel Hall Kirk
Rachel Clark
Brady Haston
Catherine Thompson
Irene Wills
Kelly Bonadies
Drew Peterson
Ulana Zahajkewycz, Alien Boy and Goth Girl
Mandy Rogers Horton
Rocky Horton