Bobby has always been more than just a hotel. Centered in Nashville’s downtown “Arts District,” it only makes sense to add some conversation to these wood-paneled walls.
In partnership with Tinney Contemporary, Nashville’s premier art gallery, Bobby is hosting The Collection at Bobby, a quarterly rotating art exhibition featuring local, regional, and national contemporary artists around collected themes and conversations.
When at Bobby, you’re free to explore every corner, and if you’d like a guided walk accompanied with a little “hair of the dog,” give us a call.
All pieces are available for purchase.
To inquire, please email:
thecollection@bobbyhotel.com
Tinney Contemporary is proud to present Clear Mirror, the latest installment at the Collection at Bobby Hotel. The exhibition features artists who engage in some variety of alternative portraiture. The emphasis here is not on objectivity or realism, but instead on the shifting nature of subjecthood and representation.
Clear Mirror draws reference to a surface both transparent and reflective: a barrier which obstructs but allows the viewer’s gaze to pass through while simultaneously producing a mutated reflection of the self. In the age of selfies, surveillance, facial recognition, and deepfakes, portraiture as an artistic practice has been turned on its head. As subjects, individuals are offered supposedly infinite control over how they are represented, with tools like Photoshop and Facetune. At the same time, corporations and state entities constantly capture and repurpose our likenesses for obscure ends.
A newfound level of anxiety around self-image has propagated on this shifting ground. Indicative of a larger movement within portraiture, the works in the exhibition evade the various apparatuses which mediate identity and which exert control over the ways we see ourselves and others. Some works express a dysmorphic alienation; others might be viewed as an attempt to wrest back the reins of representation. Through the distortion, a moment of recognition: if our differences are to be used as a means of control, here we become abstract—not formless, but spectral.
MEET THE ARTISTS OF “CLEAR MIRROR”
THE FACES BEHIND TINNEY CONTEMPORARY
Susan Tinney, owner of Tinney Contemporary, got her start in the art world in a circuitous way. Having been raised around artists and creative people, she naturally gravitated in that direction. However, her love of all things science drove her toward a career in the Biotech industry, where she enjoyed a long and interesting path. With one foot in science but her heart in the art world, Susan began holding pop-up art exhibits, where she made a name for herself in Nashville’s growing art scene.
When a visionary developer floated the idea of anchoring the newly renovated historic Kress Building with an art gallery, Susan decided it was time to make a concrete investment in her passion and purchased the ground floor to start a gallery. Tinney Contemporary opened their doors to the public in August 2006. Tinney and two former galleries started the Downtown First Saturday Art Crawl on Tinney Contemporary’s opening night, where, according to Susan, approximately 160 art crawls have been held to date.
Joshua Edward Bennett is a fine artist, a designer, a musician, a husband, and a father. He received his MFA from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, in 2019 with a concentration in digital arts and his BFA in painting and drawing in 2006 at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, TN.
At Tinney Contemporary, Joshua utilizes his extensive experience in the art world by managing the operation and curating exhibitions for the gallery. Additionally, he brings his unique curatorial perspective to the program The Collection at Bobby. Since moving to Nashville from New Orleans in 2020, Joshua has enjoyed hiking, camping, and spending more time with family and friends in Tennessee.
PAST COLLECTIONS
