Nashville Artists Featured in Frist Center's Printmaking and Book Arts Exhibition, 11/6

Featuring 24 artists from the Nashville area, Anthology: Visual Narratives from Nashville's Print Community will be on view in the Frist Center's Conte Community Arts Gallery from November 6, 2015, through February 7, 2016 and is free to the public. This juried exhibition celebrates Nashville's small presses and artists who use printing techniques in artistically significant ways to tell stories.

Anthology features a diverse selection of works, including etchings, graphic novels, illustrated posters and poems, all of which speak to the heart of Nashville's culture. "The Nashville area is home to some terrific graphic artists who work with a wide range of ideas and sensibilities," says Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala. "Nashville, of course, is also a publishing center, and a world center of music-it's all about the aesthetics of communication, storytelling, understanding ourselves through shared narrative."

While local artists take center stage in Anthology, the themes of the artworks are by no means restricted to geographic boundaries. The subject matter ranges from the playful, as in Leslie Haines's humorous representation of the English alphabet in Animal Abecedary (S is for Slug, C is for Cat) (2014), to more intimate narratives such as Jana Harper's project Joie's Story(2013), inspired by memories of her mother. The exhibition also includes mixed-media works like Cynthia Marsh's Katika Afrika(2012-13), which employs digital printing, wood type, and found woodland debris to chronicle a three-week art-making adventure in East Africa.

Artists in the exhibition:

Mika Agari

LX Aguirre

Celene Aubry

Dan Brawner

Nancy Cooley

Leslie Haines

Jana Harper

Jennifer Haston

Nick Hay

Mark Hosford

Amber Lelli

Alysha Irisari Malo

Cynthia Marsh

Ashley Moore

Heather Moulder

Kathleen O'Connell

Meghan O'Connor

Laird Ogden

Johnny Lee Park

Lesley Patterson-Marx

Jerry Bedor Phillips

Zack Rafuls

Nick Satinover

Robin Schlacter