If you’ve ever questioned whether seeing a work of art in person will change your perception of it, let two current exhibits on Hagan Street answer that for you. Start at David Lusk Gallery, where a grid of 23 never-before-seen photographs by the legendary William Eggleston is spotlit like a moody film-noir set. The shots were taken in or around 1990, and the title — For Lucia — references Eggleston’s longtime mistress Lucia Burch. But the rest of the story behind the scenes is a mystery. The photographs are quintessential Eggleston — the snapshot aesthetic he pioneered is so prevalent in the digital era that it’s easy to take it for granted.

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Lockwood’s art is often self-consciously silly and humorous. He curates other artists with similarly off-kilter and pop-culture-inspired aesthetics — even the colorful exterior of Elephant Gallery seems to announce itself as “Fun” rather than “Serious Art.” Lockwood’s sculptural creations continue to be informed by the detritus they’re crafted from. And while his work is totally accessible to broad audiences, it’s Lockwood’s use of recycled materials that pushes his work into more serious art conversations.

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Artist, art mentor, dancer with an interest in shamanic studies. This is Anne Siems an artist who likes to express her emotions in her artworks, from a magical realism in a personal garden of Eden of her earlier works to the movement #metoo of the faces tattooed women. And in this way tattoos become for Anne mythical signs, rites of passage, that are also unapologetic and brave.

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Jared Small’s paintings are like purely visual Southern Gothic tales. The acclaimed Memphis-based artist is known for his dark-and-stormy, dreamlike portraits of decaying Southern homes and dripping flower bouquets that seem to possess as much history, personality and as many secrets as the characters he emphatically leaves to your imagination. It’s an effect he achieves in part by blending gorgeous hyper-realistic representation with notes of abstraction and magical realism, giving his compositions a mysterious, ghostly aura.

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Opening a solo show at an art gallery is like releasing a new album or a new novel. It’s the public presentation of a completed body of work backed by all the resources — curating, installation, marketing, sales — that a gallery can offer. And just like debut albums and novels, debut solo exhibitions can have a big impact on scenes and markets when it comes to establishing a sustainable creative career. David Onri Anderson’s Fresh as Fruit gave gallerygoers a cornucopia of deceptively complex metaphors to digest last fall. And he also planted the seeds of what looks like a bountiful creative practice that’s just beginning to blossom.

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David Lusk Gallery, now located in a sleek, pristine-white brick building on Tillman, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month with a show of work by seven of the artists who were in that opening show and remain with the gallery today. “I think it’s unusual for any relationships – marital, friendships and otherwise – that they can span 30-some years. I listen well and I leave growth and change open for artists,” Lusk said. “I think I’ve helped my people believe in themselves.”

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DC-based artist Holt leans into the psychosexual underpinnings of Bourgeois' oeuvre in elemental ways, invoking the triumph and tragedy of female embodiment by contrasting luscious, dripping, carnal paint and careful embroidery, a nod to the history of women's domestic labor. Her direct visual quotation of Bourgeois arresting sculpture implies the stormy, referential grab-bag available for contemporary feminist artists, the long shadow of resilience and personal truth.

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It’s actually been a very productive year. After my spring show was postponed, I had a few freak-out days of wondering what the hell is going on before getting my head together and realizing the unique opportunity to just make work with limited distractions. I didn’t want to look back on this strange period of time as a lost year. Consequently, I was able to finish several paintings [and] produce two more wood sculptures that we were able to include in my current David Lusk Gallery installation here in Nashville.

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Nashville-based painter Ashley Doggett paints figurative portraits that engage with themes of religion, race, and dissociation from historical narratives of white supremacy. Her paintings are grounded in Old Master portraiture while drawing on the influences of contemporary artists including Margaret Bowland, Kara Walker, and Kehinde Wiley. Her vividly colorful works recontextualize racial stereotypes and imagery of American slavery as a means of reclaiming and reconsidering historical narratives.

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David Lusk Gallery opens Heed this weekend. This is another group show that reflects on both vast inquiries and pressing issues. Maysey Craddock’s gouache paintings on found paper bags ask big questions about the cyclical duality of the natural world. Craddock’s stylized representations of trees, rivers, roots and vines blend together into an examination of massive natural systems over vast time periods marked by growth, decay, death and rebirth. Ashley Doggett’s historical narratives about slavery and white supremacy are right on time in our current social climate, and the artist’s varied multimedia approach finds her continually refashioning fresh conversations for these times. Leslie Holt’s painted surfaces reflect a deep interest in topics like psychology and mental illness. Holt combines abstracted color fields with embroidered brain scans that reveal illnesses like schizophrenia, PTSD and depression. Rob Matthews’ latest work finds the artist bringing his technical hand to explorations of crises we associate with America’s decades-long wars in the Middle East: forced migration and terrorist assassinations. Matthews uses graphite, paint and collage techniques to create stylized lines and frantic cross-hatching, as well as detailed depictions of apocalyptic imagery from music history and the Bible.

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