Announcing the 2023-24 Emerging Artist Fellowship Recipients!

Hannah Einhorn

About Hannah:

Pronouns: she/they

Originally from Madison, Alabama, Hannah Einhorn earned her BFA from the Watkins College of Art at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. She emphasized in painting and ceramics, but also incorporates collage, drawing, and mixed media sculpture techniques into her practice. Hannah extensively exhibited her art with Belmont University and has been recognized with several awards. During her undergraduate education, she earned professional experience by interning with the Red Arrow Gallery and the Nashville Parthenon. Upon graduation, Hannah was honored to have her first solo exhibition with the Femme Art Gallery at 100 Taylor Arts in August. Hannah is continuing her studio practice through the STATE Gallery + Studios Residency Program at the Forge in Nashville as well as participating in the inaugural Buchanan Arts Fellowship Program. You can also find Hannah around town working at events and classes with Turnip Green Creative Reuse, at which she is a Teaching Artist.

Hannah’s Artist Statement:

“I produce artworks through developed research of gender-based fear, feminine aesthetics, and violence. When investigating content to inform my work, I continually mine my own relationship with trauma and how identity impacts a person’s worldly experiences. Through this, I have come to a reckoning with my own neuroticism. I explore queer human resilience as it relates to race, neurodivergence, sexuality, and gender, but I also aim to examine the uncomfortable and even terrifying parts of being alive. My work is about trauma, but also much more: it is about safety, revenge, peace, social politics, isolation, and community.”

Juliana Morgan Alvarez

About Juliana:

Juliana Morgan Alvarez (they/them, she/her, b. Miami, FL) is a live-performance, sculpture, and ceramics artist. Their work investigates, with a keen wonderment toward natural phenomena, what happens to an object’s or a person’s relationship to itself and the outside world when confronted with friction and combustion. Their performances and work have been presented at the Wasmer Gallery in Fort Myers, OZ Arts in Nashville, Garden at Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, CalArts Center for New Performance, and international film festivals, including East End Film Festival in London, Mix Mexico in Mexico City, and QFF Mezipatra Prague Film Festival.

Select performances and work from the past year include: feature length film The Veteran (dir. Jeremy Waltman, currently in festival circuit), Art Wire fellow (2022-2023),  NEA endorsed performance and installation One Island (GhostBird Theatre Company, 2022), Artist Affiliate with Theatre Emory (2022).

Juliana’s Artist Statement:

“My work is an exploration into slowness and surrender. Tediously shaping and smoothing 200 delicate tiles, then releasing them to flames and smoke. Introducing a new, barely breathing performance to a room of relative strangers and allowing their fidgeting, silent belches, laughter, and such to impact each lived moment. Diligent, intentional work that comes in conflict with elements and living others that cannot be controlled. A process that permanently alters, mars, and makes more beautiful the original idea/intention of an object/experience.

How does this history of contact create chains of connection through the objects and spaces we inhabit?”

Steven Gavel

About Steven:

Steven Gavel is an artist from middle Tennessee and is a BFA graduate of Middle Tennessee State University. Steven is an active member of the Nashville Ceramics community, who serves as a volunteer at Buchanan Arts Center, in the heart of the north Nashville arts district. His volunteer duties include youth instruction in ceramics and general upkeep of the shop. In undergrad, Steven developed his professional skills through work study jobs within the art department. Steven served as the art gallery photographer and woodshop technician during this time. In addition to work study positions, Steven worked his way through the ranks of the MTSU Honor's Collage Magazine, to become the editor in chief of the student ran publication in his final semester of university.

Steven’s Artist Statement:

My work can be understood as the celebration of chance. The images that illuminate my work represent moments of spiritual fortitude that I use to make sense of the chaotic nature of life. I often depict nature in my work as a force that carries me forward, good, or bad. These forms and images represent the duality of emotions that pull on me throughout life. Like getting lost in the woods or driving aimlessly through the jungle of highways across America, there may be moments of doubt, but there is something unexpected across the horizon, and that is enough for me to keep trying

Andie Peach

About Andie:

Andrea Wells, also known as Andie Peach, grew up in the diverse, creative community of Richmond, Virginia. Being around the city's unique street art scene exposed her to the possibilities of public and community-engaged art. Andie attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where she studied illustration and art history. During her time there, she had the opportunity to work on both collaborative and mural projects. In the summer of 2021, Andie interned with Looky Here, a community art space and print shop in Greenfield, Massachussetts. Here, she solidified her belief in wanting to contribute to making accessible art events and programming to communities. She also developed a new love and interest in print making. Andie graduated with her BFA in December 2021 and moved to Nashville shortly after. Since moving, she's worked with Watkins Community Education to provide art classes for both adults and children. She continues to maintain her personal art-making practice, which mainly involves painting and printmaking.

Andie’s Artist Statement:

“The work I create is how I perceive the world around me. I grab people's attention through my art's colorful nature, unique stylization, and whimsical subject matter. What I invite my audience to do, once I've gotten their attention, is to think about how they perceive the world. Humanity is a huge aspect of my practice, showing the vulnerability of being a person in a complicated world. I want to communicate these feelings and thoughts in more everyday spaces rather than in galleries or museums. The best places for my work are accessible outdoor spaces, where a much more diverse audience gets the chance to see it than in any gallery.”