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. The inaugural exhibition “A Fluid & Emphatic Now,” launches on September 21, 2021 featuring artists from Nashville, New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami.
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
“There is no doubt that we all have experienced our fair share of perspective in the last year-and-some-change. Analogous to the clear and present threat we have been attempting to elude is a plague of uncertainty. Plans ceased. Expectations slipped. We continue to face the challenge of reimagining how we function. Lines are now blurred. There are still more difficult questions to be answered. So, what exactly is this moment, this present, this now? Has time been forever altered? If so, maybe it is not such a bad thing?
We now find ourselves near-ish to the exit of the proverbial tunnel, and I am here considering how we will consolidate and distill what we have collectively experienced. As an eternal optimist, I choose to focus on the ingenuity, resilience, adaptability, and fluidity we necessarily embraced to progress. I honestly believe we will ultimately step into the light with fewer edges.
A Fluid & Emphatic Now provides a selection of works by several artists living and working across America. For many, this is their debut showing in Nashville. This exhibition portrays a varied range of subject matter and mediums. Photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, fiber, and digital works, as well as objects that settle somewhere in between, are all represented on the wood-paneled walls of BOBBY Hotel. Because of the rich eclecticism and dense visual language that exalts in this space, I felt it necessary to choose bold, finely crafted, eye-catching work with commanding allure. The specific placement of each selected piece delineates visual pathways and provides punctuations through the optical overload of BOBBY’s decadence.
Beyond their rich aesthetic presence, the artworks in this exhibition are in a cooperative and contextual conversation. Some pieces relate more readily, while others further removed by formal quality contribute to the thematic foundation in more subtle ways. These works inherently speak to our present moment of emphatic fluidity by reimagining traditional disciplines or by simply evading them altogether. They are contemporary and welcome a soft definition. They are bright, intriguing, colorful, and masterfully executed. This exhibition visually articulates my optimism, wonder, and belief in our versatility as humans. I sincerely hope that whoever experiences this collection of work will come away feeling enriched and emphatically fluid.”
-Joshua Edward Bennett
Meet the artists of “A Fluid & Emphatic Now”
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.
