Burnaway

Perversion of Form at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, through May 13

“Perversion of Form” explores the parallels between these artists’ adversarial attraction to traditional forms of art-making. Each artist employs process-based methods to subvert preconceptions of their craft. Robert Beatty is an artist and musician based in Lexington, Kentucky, who is sought after for his contemporary album art and illustrations for such publications as Lucky Peach, The Wire Magazine, and the New York Times. Sarah Briland received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2014, she was an Emerging Artist-in-Residence at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. Ryan Crowley is a Richmond-based sculptor who studied at Massachusetts College of Art and Design before earning his MFA from VCU in 2012. Ben Durham has had solo shows at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in New York, Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles, Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, and Reynolds Gallery in Richmond. Mike Goodlett lives in Wilmore, Kentucky, and has had solo exhibitions at the Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Christian Berst Gallery, New York, and Institute 193, Lexington.

Coinciding with the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Atlanta, “Unloaded” is presented by Dashboard, curated by Susanne Slavick, with local additions curated and commissioned by Dashboard. On view through May 20.

Lauren Fensterstock: Holophusicon at MOCA Jacksonville, through June 18

This atrium project, Portland-based artist Lauren Fensterstock is inspired by Holophusicon, an 18th-century natural history and ethnographical museum in London, and American artist Robert Smithson’s Mirror with Crushed Shells in Sanibel, Florida. Fensterstock creates site-specific installations that render the natural world in an entirely synthetic and monochromatic way, often using paper, charcoal and Plexiglas. Fensterstock’s monochromatic sculptures appear bleak and monolithic from a distance, but intricacies emerge up close. For this project, Fensterstock collected shells in her native Maine and Sanibel Island to produce large ornamental cabinets as well as loose, organic stalactites on the wall.

Brady Haston: Fragmentary Survey & Douglas Degges: Split Ends at Zeitgeist Gallery, Nashville, through June 24

Brady Haston’s works abstractly reference obscure landmarks, urban reference points, and geology in Nashville. Several of the paintings incorporate drawings based on the local environment. Treehouse and The New, Old Forest reference the large, hollow sycamore tree that Bigfoot Spencer, one of Middle Tennessee’s first white settlers, lived in one winter. Haston notes: “There is a definite conceit when a contemporary abstract painting refers to the past. At best, the work will engage the audience through an elaborate metaphor and create a conversation that expands their knowledge of this specific area while helping to orient the viewer in a local, ongoing history.”

“Split Ends” features two groups of paintings that celebrate slowness: slowness in looking and slowness in making. These works allude to a high speed world dominated by immediate access to anything, from sourcing information on the internet to our ability to capture and store images at a moment’s notice. Douglas Degges was born in Louisiana and currently lives in Chattanooga. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa and has been an artist-in-residence at the Millay Colony and the Vermont Studio Center.

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