I Wish I Felt This Way At Home

Torrance Shipman Gallery, Brooyklyn, NY

Mika Agari, David Onri Anderson, Devin Balara, Ann Catherine Carter, Nick Hay & Clarissa Rose Peppers, David King, Amy Pleasant, Zack Rafuls, Cody Tumblin, Omar Velazquez

October 13 - November 22 2015

Torrance Shipman Gallery is excited to announce I Wish I Felt This Way At Home, a group exhibition that brings together nine artists that have shown at The Packing Plant since its inception, as well as the curators of the space, Ann Catherine Carter and Zack Rafuls.

The Packing Plant is an artist-run gallery and project space located in Nashville, TN, founded in April, 2014. With the belief in mind that artist-run spaces function as conduits for communities, The Packing Plant and Torrance Shipman have organized a pair of exchange exhibitions. Brought about by a shared interest in the fostering of connections, dialogues, and relationships between artist communities, the exhibition is an attempt to initiate a conversation about the reciprocal nature of exchange in itself. The title of the exhibition, a subtle nod to the relevance of place, is pulled from a song by Tennessean Dolly Parton, and captures this bridge-building, familial endeavor, imbuing it with a sense of sentimentality. 

David Onri Anderson was born in Nashville, TN in 1993 and is currently enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film, Nashville, TN. His most recent exhibitions include a two-person show called Living On Mousemeat with fellow artist and collaborator David King at Track One in Nashville, TN, a group video exhibition called What Are You Watching? at Stairwell Gallery in Bloomsberg, PA, a solo pop-up exhibition at Oz Arts in Nashville, TN, and another two-person exhibition with artist Ann Catherine Carter entitled Conscious Camouflage in Track One, Nashville, TN. He recently had a painting selected to be on the cover of independent arts journal Number, issue 82: aesthetics and criticism, and has a painting in the permanent collection of Watkins College of Art, Design, and Film. Over the Summer of 2015 he participated in an internship at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville, TN. Currently, Anderson is studying the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, relating, questioning, and testing his philosophies through his painting practice.

Devin Balara (b. 1988) hails proudly from the aggressively pastel suburbs of Tampa, FL. She received a BFA in sculpture from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL and an MFA in sculpture from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. She is a recipient of the 2014 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center residency program, a residency at 8550 Ohio, and a curatorial assistantship with the Building department at Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC. National solo and group exhibitions include Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, FL, Manifest Gallery in Cincinatti, OH, Project Space One in Iowa City and the Indianapolis Art Center in Indiana. 

Ann Catherine Carter (b. 1990) is an artist from Birmingham, AL, working and living in Nashville, TN. She is primarily a painter concerned with the aesthetics of consumer culture and pop music. She received her BFA from Watkins College of Art, Design, & Film in 2013 and looks forward to attending Pratt Institute for graduate studies in 2016. In addition to her studio practice, she co-curates an alternative project space called The Packing Plant, and has a music project called Lavender. 

Nick Hay was born in San Antonio, TX. He received his BFA from Texas State University (2010) and his MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder (2014). He has exhibited nationally in Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, and New York. He currently lives and works in Nashville, TN, and he absolutely refuses to do yoga.

Clarissa Rose Peppers was born in Cincinnati, OH. She received her BFA from Northern Kentucky University (2011) and her MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder (2013). She has exhibited nationally in Ohio, Kentucky, and Colorado. She currently lives and works in Nashville, TN, and she absolutely loves to do yoga. 

David King is an artist in Nashville, TN. He holds a BA from the University of Tennessee and currently studies at Watkins College of Art, Design, & Film. In 2012 he curated the group exhibition It’s Hot in a Dog’s Head at Ground Floor Gallery + Studios (Nashville) and recently showed alongside collaborator David Anderson in Living on Mousemeat at Track One (Nashville). 

Amy Pleasant (b. 1972) is represented by Jeff Bailey Gallery, NY and Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, GA and currently lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. She received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from The Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA. She has held solo exhibitions in New York City at Jeff Bailey Gallery as well as Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta, GA. In addition, she has held solo exhibitions at The Birmingham Museum of Art, The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, CANDYLAND, Stockholm, Sweden, Rhodes College, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her work has been included in group exhibitions in venues such as The Knoxville Museum of Art, The Hunter Museum of American Art, The Columbus Museum of Art, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, and The U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. Pleasant’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, Art Papers, The Commercial Appeal, Burnaway and artforum.com.

Zack Rafuls (b. 1992) was born in Miami, FL. He is a 2015 BFA graduate of Watkins College of Art, Design, & Film in Nashville, TN. In 2014, Rafuls studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as participant in the AICAD Mobility Program. From 2012 to 2014 Rafuls served as chair of artist collective Company H and is currently co-curator of The Packing Plant, an artist-run space in Nashville, TN. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions in spaces in Nashville such as COOP Gallery, Track 13, Fort Houston, the Watkins Arcade Gallery, and Ground Floor Gallery + Studios. Recently Rafuls collaborated with artists Mike Womack, Scott Zieher, and Shane McAdams on the project HIGH/LOW/MIDDLE, a weeklong journey across the state of Wisconsin that culminated in an exhibition organized by The Museum of Wisconsin Art, Milwaukee, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Cody Tumblin is from Nashville, Tennessee. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent exhibitions include a solo show, Tell Tale, at Devening Projects + Editions in Chicago, PRTY PPL curated by Josh Reames at Circuit 12 in Dallas and Forlorn Luck, a solo show at Lunchmoney Gallery in Aarhus, Denmark. Tumblin also recently participated in SHIT IS REAL at Devening Projects + Editions, a solo show with The Salon Series, and Pile Hunk Stage with Kayl Parker at Gallery X. This fall, Tumblin anticipates a two person show, Awkward Dimensions, with Jaime Angelopoulos at LVL3 in Chicago. 

Omar Velázquez (b. 1984) is an interdisciplinary artist currently pursuing his MFA in Painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has shown several times in individual projects at the Puerto Rico Museum of Art, and the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art. He has also participated in a numerous group exhibitions, biennials and triennials including Japan, Beijing, Spain, Republic of Macedonia, New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia.