Blend Studio

Blend Studio opened its doors in June of 2009 during the First Saturday Gallery Crawl. Located on the second floor of the historic Arcade building and in the heart of the gallery district in downtown Nashville, Blend Studio offers a diverse range of of...

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This week my family got a little bit smaller and I said goodbye to Sassy, my sweet gentle cherub. My mom and I have had her and Nikki for 15 years, they came from a kitten rescue in a jewelry shop and became my best friends in a time that I felt very alone and isolated from people. I feel so lucky that we were able to take her home and nourish her to health and in turn she nourished me, my mom, and my closest friends when we needed it. I’m so sorry we couldn’t save you from your pain baba, you were deeply loved 💕 (at Nashville, Tennessee) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpXDX9lliJFnTHl7zxbhdonqAeBIb4vSxvJsSU0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1a5f6r3g8d254

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Join us tonight for the July Art Crawl! Blend Studio will be featuring new works by artist William "BJ" Kirkpatrick (@w.c.kirkpatrick) The artist will be available at the reception to discuss his a collection of paper cutout portraits of historical figures 🎨✨ (at Blend Studio)

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Terry Lynn

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Numbers New work by Terry Lynn February 4, 2017 – March 1, 2017 Opening Reception: First Saturday Gallery Crawl: February 4, 2017; 6-9pm Blend Studio will be hosting new work by Terry Lynn during the month of February. The artist will be available on the opening night of the First Saturday Art Crawl. Terry Lynn mixed media paintings capture the story of rural communities in the southern states. He works and lives in Memphis, Tennessee developing his portraits and landscape imagery that are compelling and complex. The usage of mixed media, washes, and layers of paints bring historical narrative in blending of modern and tradition. Growing up with a close-knit family, Terry and his brother develop their visual vocabulary by listening to family talk about churches, blues music and black family gathering.

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Family Portraits By Luisiana Mera Opening Reception: First Saturday Gallery Crawl: January 7, 2017; 6-9pm Blend Studio will be hosting new work by Luisiana Mera during the month of January. The artist will be available on the opening night of the First Saturday Art Crawl. Artist Statement In this series I have created work to reflect on the experiences and places depicted in photographed moments and respective traditions. I have collected images from my family, carefully reproducing them. These images act as a preservation of memory, if only a residue of a true memory replicated with sincere intention, they become opposed to the passage of time. This very personal ritualistic practice of replication has evolved into collaboration between my family, and I. It has allowed me to connect with them and create new experiences with them as subjects in these images. Family is a theme I return to constantly. It is a subject I believe is universally personal. These works act as documentation to my dynamic and complicated relationship with them. It is documentation of my worries of a fading relationship, with age, with distance. My grandmother, the lasting matriarch in my family, is the central focus in this series. For me, she embodies this fear of loss of relationship. The great amount of time I spend with these images of her acts as a surrogate to the relationship I lack. When I look at her it is almost a mirror. I am afraid of the time she represents; the time before her, and after slows. Everything I have I can see in her; simultaneously, I am faced with the realization of my absence from these moments. This absence leaves me empty. In a way, spending hours with images of this representation acts as a way to fill in the empty space. As I add detail to the low quality images, time is replaced. I add intention when it is lacking. Replication is devotion to remembering. I have spent hundreds of hours perfecting her on my drawings. Her cheekbones, her hair, her eyes, her skin, her wrinkles, her details are attentively remembered and recreated.

[blendstudio-blog]

Family Portraits By Luisiana Mera Opening Reception: First Saturday Gallery Crawl: January 7, 2017; 6-9pm Blend Studio will be hosting new work by Luisiana Mera during the month of January. The artist will be available on the opening night of the First Saturday Art Crawl. Artist Statement In this series I have created work to reflect on the experiences and places depicted in photographed moments and respective traditions. I have collected images from my family, carefully reproducing them. These images act as a preservation of memory, if only a residue of a true memory replicated with sincere intention, they become opposed to the passage of time. This very personal ritualistic practice of replication has evolved into collaboration between my family, and I. It has allowed me to connect with them and create new experiences with them as subjects in these images. Family is a theme I return to constantly. It is a subject I believe is universally personal. These works act as documentation to my dynamic and complicated relationship with them. It is documentation of my worries of a fading relationship, with age, with distance. My grandmother, the lasting matriarch in my family, is the central focus in this series. For me, she embodies this fear of loss of relationship. The great amount of time I spend with these images of her acts as a surrogate to the relationship I lack. When I look at her it is almost a mirror. I am afraid of the time she represents; the time before her, and after slows. Everything I have I can see in her; simultaneously, I am faced with the realization of my absence from these moments. This absence leaves me empty. In a way, spending hours with images of this representation acts as a way to fill in the empty space. As I add detail to the low quality images, time is replaced. I add intention when it is lacking. Replication is devotion to remembering. I have spent hundreds of hours perfecting her on my drawings. Her cheekbones, her hair, her eyes, her skin, her wrinkles, her details are attentively remembered and recreated.

[blendstudio-blog]

Detail from Jared Hargrove's ink drawing "Upstream." @rijahar

[thunderstruck9]

Julie Mehretu (Ethiopian, b. 1977), Mogamma, A Painting in Four Parts: Part 3, 2012. Ink and acrylic on canvas, 457.2 x 365.8 cm.

[xpayne-is]

OVER-DOGS

[lesstalkmoreillustration]

Jess Riva Cooper

http://www.jessrivacooper.com/

Check us out on Instagram: @Lesstalkmoreillustration

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Andrew Wyeth- the witching hour

[itscolossal]

A Public Park in Taipei Welded From Recycled Light Posts

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Build Your Own Nest mixed media and acrylic on canvas Jared Friehoefer 

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles digital illustration 

re-imagined by pop-culture enthusiast and designer artist Xavier Payne

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Barrel Mountain collagraph; image size 9" x 13"; paper size 11" x 15. 

“A trip to Colorado, thinking about Paducah's past, and St. Louis in general. Recently seeing school children playing on top of a pile of nuclear waste at Weldon Springs Missouri. Nuclear waste sights are becoming tourist attractions.”

Jason Hargrove

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Hanging work for tomorrow!! It's looking amazing, we can wait to share it with you all! (at Construct)

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Salvador Dali

“Galatea of the Spheres”