News

September 30 – October 1 | Starting at 6:30 PM

COOP Gallery is pleased to present Microcinema: A Short Film Festival by COOP Gallery. Microcinema is an experimental film and video festival. This year the screening will take place outdoors at COOP Gallery in Nashville, TN over two nights, during the premiere of Artville.

Microcinema will feature work by independent film/video artists from the Southeast and beyond. The goal of our microcinematic event is to share a range of artistic expressions, cultural perspectives, and critical inquiries with Nashville’s creative community.

The two-evening event will feature screenings of over twenty short films, along with filmmaker introductions of their films and filmmaker panels. Seven awards will be handed out, including the IBFF Choice Award. Two short films, one chosen by COOP and one chosen by the International Black FIlm Festival (IBFF), will be screened both at COOP’s Microcinema and at the International Black Film Festival, which occur during the same weekend. Audience members will also have the chance to vote for one film to receive the Audience Festival Favorite award.

Filmmakers include: Jacklyn Brickman, Casey Carter, Dimitry Said Chamy, Chrimmons, Ellen Allbrey Everett, Max Andrew Fisk, Federica Foglia, Ian Joseph Greene, Cheryl Hazelton, Jonathan Onsuwan Johnson, Tariah Lane, Natalie Martinez-White, Joe Nolan, Heath Schultz, Harrison Shook, Ivette Spradin, Lenore Thomas, Hope Tucker, Cortney Warner, John Warren, Monique Wilhoit, Aram Winter, Tony S. Youngblood.

Schedule of IBFF exchange films:

Sept. 30: Screening of Jahleel and Star by Monique Wilhoit, presented by IBFF

Oct. 1: Screening of Far From the Wheel by Aram Winter, winner of COOP’s IBFF Choice Award

More Details To Be Announced!

September 2nd – 23rd | Opening Reception September 2nd, 1– 9 PM

COOP is pleased to present Temple of My Familiar by Gary White. White’s work shares a multi-ethnic viewpoint highlighting less heard history and figures. Gary’s work revolves around capturing moments of the past and present with inspiration stemming from histories, lifeways, ancestors, tribal traditions, folklore, and religious practices to create hybrid archetypes. These Archetypes become personal expressions of identity, time, place, and lifeways of the old and new South. The sculptures transport the viewer back in time to revisit the past and ponder the present. These characters become guardians, guides, and storytellers. Within them hold metaphorical memory, archived experiences, and wisdom.

More about the Artist
Gary White, a native of Nashville, earned a Bachelor’s degree from Watkins College of Art and Design in 2011. He earned his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2022. Learn more about White on Instagram: @gary.white.claygriot.

COOP Gallery is pleased to present HOME by Paula Rivera Calderón. Part traditional
exhibition of meticulous illustrations and part playful experiments with accessible and found materials, Home invites you into Calderón’s inner sanctum. Paula’s paintings offer a slice of both her home life and inner life, with imagery arranged in vaguely sequential vignettes reminiscent of her home in the Puerto Rican diaspora of Philadelphia. Layered throughout is the repetitive reimagining of natural elements that have morphed into Paula’s iconography: dogs and butterflies, suns and moons, plants and rivers, a child’s outstretched hands. Calderón’s mark-making is bold, with contrasting graphic black outlines and blocks of bright color, yet she approaches her subject matter with gentleness.
While her paintings offer suggestions of a narrative, they were made as visceral outpourings from the artist’s reflections on the feeling of home and the comfort she wishes to cultivate.

While her family is her main inspiration for her work, she is also interested in contemplating
nourishment and rest and their connection to vitality. Her combination of hyper-focused and off-focus imagery creates a sense of movement and awareness that our narratives are always happening inside a larger scene. The viewer leaves her work feeling as privileged as being invited into her actual home.

More about the Artist
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Paula Rivera Calderón (b. 1991) is a visual artist and single parent who works with a combination of traditional (ink, gouache) and accessible (cardboard, found objects) materials inspired by their desire for comfort and home. As a child, Paula lived with her family on a school campus in a deeply religious household, which resulted in their feeling disconnected from their neighborhood and peers. Her social anxiety and loneliness were counteracted by cultivating a complex inner world with acts of constant drawing.

She studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with a painting concentration, and at La Escuela de Artes Plasticas studying animation. While they attempted to finish their BFA, they left school after becoming pregnant with their son. Their more recent pivot to collage, working with cardboard, paper mache, and murals, stems from their intention to make more approachable, inspiring, and interactive work meant for anyone, but particularly her son and his peers. Their work has previously been exhibited at Chapterhouse Gallery and the James Oliver Gallery in Philadelphia. This is their first solo exhibition. Learn more about Paula at paulariveracalderon.com

Shelby Rodeffer’s Entropy’s Stitch

July 1st – 22nd | Opening Reception July 1st, 1– 9 PM

COOP Gallery is pleased to present Entropy’s Stitch, an art installation by Shelby Rodeffer.
Entropy’s Stitch weaves together the enigmatic world of Masonic regalia, the unpredictable
force of entropy in late-stage capitalism, and the whimsical charm of Southern idioms. Through hand-sewn and painted banners inspired by Masonic regalia, each piece becomes a canvas for a captivating exploration of hope, entropic chaos, and southern culture.

In this exhibition, Rodeffer transcends her previous focus on social critique and embarks on a new entropic direction. Messages hand-painted onto silk and satin banners combine nihilistic thoughts with Southern idioms, creating a peculiar fusion of introspection and humor. As you venture through the exhibition, you will encounter a tapestry of calls to action interlaced with absurdity. The messages, simultaneously silly and thought-provoking, invite contemplation on the futility of life’s grand tapestry. Entropy’s Stitch is an invitation to embrace the disordered nature of our world, to find solace in the nonsensical, and to explore the intersection of nihilism and silliness.

More about the Artist
Shelby Rodeffer is a Kentucky-based artist specializing in traditional sign painting and gilding, handmade banners, murals, and other painted works. Rodeffer has exhibited work nationally and internationally, curated group exhibitions, and created more than 30 hand-painted signs and murals, many of which can be seen in public spaces and on storefronts across the United States of America. Rodeffer is the owner and principal painter of Finer Signs, which has created work for notable clients including Warby Parker, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Coca-Cola. Finer Signs prioritizes opportunities to collaborate with small businesses and local non-profit organizations, through custom signage and public artwork to increase their visibility in the community or through gratis or low-cost workshops for youth, beginning artists, and those interested in the traditional crafts of hand-lettering and sign painting.

More about COOP
COOP is a curatorial collective made up of artists, curators, thinkers, and professors who are committed to expanding Nashville’s dialogue with contemporary art by presenting challenging new or under-represented artists/artworks to our community. COOP is committed to exhibiting art of diverse media and content, with a goal to provide an alternative venue for artists free from the constraints of the retail market. COOP seeks to initiate a discourse between Nashville and art scenes across the country by inviting artists to show, develop projects and interact with the Nashville community.

Website: coopgallery.org
For questions contact: info@coopgallery.org, Beth Reitmeyer, beth.reitmeyer@gmail.com

June 3 – June 24 | Opening Reception June 3, 1pm-9pm

COOP Gallery is pleased to present The Mall, an art installation by LA-based artist Mikki
Yamashiro along with dance performances by Amanda Reichert. Mikki Yamashiro’s installation explores a time before Zoom, TikTok, and Amazon Prime. A time when there was a common place to gather, shop, and be perceived: The Mall. In this body of work, Yamashiro recalls the nostalgia of the 1990’s and early 2000’s mall culture with hand-crocheted pieces that reference iconic logos and familiar brands. Yamashiro identifies the crocheted works as the antithesis of fast fashion, creating a parallel-universe Mall where there is value in the handmade and the imperfect.

COOP Gallery will also premiere ‘It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty’,
developed by Amanda Reichert in collaboration with McKay House, Joi Ware, & Alex Winer. This piece examines the complexity of our emotional states through the dispositions of four characters living together but separate in their own vivid worlds. Inspired loosely by the work of Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, the characters explore themes of isolation, connection, care, and how the stories we tell ourselves impact our ability to perceive what is real. Performances will be held Saturday, June 3rd @ 7 pm and Sunday, June 4th @ 2 pm.

It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty was made possible with support from Metro Arts THRIVE, Metro Parks Dance Division, Animata Arts, The COOP Gallery, and DancEast. Entry is free! Space is limited. RSVP at www.eventbrite.com/its-hard-to-stay-mad-when-theres-so-much-beauty-tickets

More about the Artists
Mikki Yamashiro is a self-taught artist, performer, and professional wrestler based in Los Angeles. Working at the intersection of craft, pop culture, and queerness, her irreverent hand-crocheted pieces often use cartoon figures like Bart Simpson, Bevis, and Butthead to highlight contemporary issues. In reinterpreting identifiable products, emblems, and iconography from popular culture through an outsider lens, her fiber practice challenges mainstream culture. Yamishiro envisions a hyper-saturated reality powered by radical energy.

Amanda Reichert is a freelance dancer and choreographer originally from Lawrence, KS. She received her BFA in Dance Performance from Chapman University, where she was awarded the Donna Cucunato Award for outstanding contribution to dance. In 2014 she moved to New York City, where she worked with Mike Esperanza, Suku Dance Lab, Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup, and MersihaMesihovic/CircuitDebris, among additional collaborations with freelance artists throughout New York City and Nashville. She credits them with both the brief and deep influence they’ve left on her own creative process. She has had the pleasure of presenting work for the Young Choreographer’s Festival at Symphony Space and Center for Performance Research in NYC, the Kindling Arts Festival and The Barbershop Theater in Nashville, TN, at Festival Nómada in El Salvador, and b12 Dance Festival in Berlin. She moved to Nashville, TN at the beginning of 2019 to focus on developing her own ideas as a dancemaker, and currently teaches contemporary dance to students at Franklin School of Performing Arts and Harpeth Hall. She is a recipient of the Metro THRIVE program funding for a new project to premiere in June 2023.

More about COOP
COOP is a curatorial collective made up of artists, curators, thinkers, and professors who are committed to expanding Nashville’s dialogue with contemporary art by presenting challenging new or under-represented artists/artworks to our community. COOP is committed to exhibiting art of diverse media and content, with a goal to provide an alternative venue for artists free from the constraints of the retail market. COOP seeks to initiate a discourse between Nashville and art scenes across the country by inviting artists to show, develop projects and interact with the Nashville community.
Website: coopgallery.org
For questions contact:
info@coopgallery.org, Sai Clayton, saimuraiclayton@gmail.com

May 6 – 26, 2023 | Opening Reception Saturday, May 6th 1–9 PM

COOP Gallery is pleased to present Bag Bag by Ann Moody. Moody’s practice grapples with
the superabundance of material culture by reclaiming and retooling discarded objects from
thrift stores, junk shops, and friends’ homes. Necessarily worn and often dated—single-use
plastics, scratchy acrylic yarns, pilled clothing, stained sheets, and stiff, stifling poly-blend
fabrics foreground Moody’s work. Reworking this archive of waste becomes a framework for apprehending Moody’s past as a material that can be reclaimed, cut up, mended, painted over, and worked into. Bag Bag investigates the ubiquity of plastic, particularly in the domestic space. While living in Buffalo, Moody watched stores transition to compulsory reusable bags.

After returning to Moody’s home, Alabama, during a global pandemic that necessitated
grocery delivery, Moody was struck by the piles of accumulated plastic bags and the ease
with which everyone consumed them. Petroleum spilling from our external environment, into our homes and—once disposed of—back into our environment again. Moody’s mother kept a “bag bag” to hold plastic shopping bags in purgatory before their eventual reuse as garbage can liners. However, the amount of garbage can liners Moody needs is disproportionate to the quantity of plastic bags accumulated. This resourceful, conscientious “bag bag” logic can find its way into the studio, utilizing an excess of free and low-cost materials.

More about the Artist
Currently based in Alabama, Ann Moody (b.1989) is an educator and artist combining
reclaimed materials with painting, soft sculpture, and other craft-based processes to examine how domestic objects entwine with identity, maintenance, waste, and productivity. Moody has exhibited nationally at galleries including The Waiting Room, Little Berlin, and The Overlook. Prior to receiving her MFA from the University at Buffalo, Moody completed their BFA at the University of Montevallo, where she currently teaches studio and lecture courses. Moody leads workshops covering a range of craft and art techniques within educational, community and gallery contexts. Learn more about Moody at cargocollective.com/annmoody

You’re invited to join COOP member and Indigenous artist Shayna Hobbs, in a relaxed & soothing environment as she guides you through a journey of healing through creation. She will share her own story of healing through art which has helped her process and release heavy emotions, the death of two siblings, trauma, abuse, PTSD, and the identity struggles of growing up as a bi-racial, Indigenous girl. Hobbs has reclaimed her childlike expression by allowing herself to play and create without rules and without judgment.

She will lead you through her method of intuitive healing & playful creation and you’ll make and take home your own art, and hopefully your own healing too 🙂 We look forward to seeing you there.

THE EXPERIENCE:
+ guided meditation & breath
+ healing sounds + music + movement
+ sweetgrass & sage
+ stories of healing
+ Create your own art

* canvases and art materials will be supplied but I ask that you bring a memory, picture, or item that holds symbolism for something you want to heal, release or transmute through art.

*Please bring a yoga mat, sleeping bag, or pillows as we will be working on the floor in a relaxed and childlike way. Wear comfortable clothing.

DETAILS:
SUNDAY
APRIL 23, 2023
2:30-4:30 PM
COOP GALLERY
507 HAGAN ST.
NASHVILLE, TN 37203

Grab your free tickets here!

COOP GALLERY APRIL 28-30, PART OF THE TENNESSEE RE-PAIR TRIENNIAL 

Take a 4-dimensional dive into your identity at Persistent Ache of Baby Teeth at COOP Gallery April 28-30. Samantha Zaruba’s (Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville, Paint Your Noodz) interactive exhibition features paintings, reflection stations and workshops inviting viewers to engage with these complex themes in a visceral and personal way. This Tennessee Re-pair Triennial show, will be open for public viewing on Saturday, April 29 from 6-9pm.

Prompt-driven reflection stations, workshops, or other interactive parts of the installation, may encourage participants to begin shedding their current identities and consciously create new, perhaps more authentic ones. 

Sliding-scale workshops accompany the work throughout the weekend, pulling viewers deeper into the art. On Friday, Zaruba will lead a special edition of her Paint Your Noodz class for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence to provide an accessible opportunity to reclaim their bodies. Saturday afternoon, Zaruba will take participants through a mirror and emotion workshop that will leave them with a deeper understanding of themselves and an increased power over their emotional state.

“In the rigorous examination of the age-old question “Who am I?” I believe we will begin to repair our relationships to ourselves and by extension, with each other.”

BIO:

Samantha Zaruba is a mixed media artist and art empowerment teacher interested in how self-constructed narratives and media consumption impact human beings on a cellular and collective level. Zaruba’s latest series examines our relationship to our bodies in the modern era and is a revival of work she started while studying Art at UMass Amherst. Her work has been featured in print (Out Voices Nashville, Winner of Best Visual Artist in Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville), galleries (Turnip Green Creative Reuse Artist in Residence) and album covers (Ron Gallo, Naked Giants).

Zaruba is the creator of Paint Your Noodz, a personalized and empowering paint & sip art experience. In her role as a business owner and visual artist, she utilizes her platform and passion for community organizing to raise funds for causes that align with her commitments. In 2022, Zaruba raised over $1200 through art donation and benefit classes with funds benefiting Nashville Launch Pad, ARC SouthEast and Abortion Care Tennessee.