Housewives Behaving Badly: commentary by Robin Venable

Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Gluttony, oil on linen, 40 x 30''

This month at The Arts Company is all about visual archaeology - digging through appearances to find the deeper meanings. Denise Stewart-Sanabria and Chris Beck have each created new bodies of work that are inviting on the surface, but complex in the subject matter. Once you start digging, you will find there are issues that speak into the deepest levels of what it is to be human. When viewed together, each series of work talks to the other one.

Denise Stewart-Sanabria, The Immaculate Confection, oil on linen, 24 x 48''

Denise's sumptuous paintings of personified "donuts behaving badly" allow her to explore the seven deadly sins and other human foibles (such as "Drunks") with more tenacity, humor, and depth than had she painted humans acting out the same indiscretions. Her bold and playful titles such as "The Immaculate Confection" challenge the viewer to see traditional themes in a new light. She entices the viewer with globs of gooey insides and powdery toppings to show how enticing "behaving badly" can be at first, but the crumbs, bitten-off edges, and reflections on the tables they sit on suggest otherwise - like the 17th century Dutch vanitas paintings that were beautifully adorned with pearls and jewels, but also included rotten fruit and hollow skulls to suggest the brevity of life.

Chris Beck, Lorraine, mixed media, 44 x 32 x 8''

Chris's perfectly poised "housewives", some of which are framed, sit quietly among their backdrops from ages past. Using ads from LIFE magazine from the 1950's as inspiration, he, like Denise, invites the viewer into another world where things aren't always what they seem. In the boom of consumerism in post-war America, women who worked during the war to keep the country afloat, returned to the home where pot-roasts and dirty carpets awaited them. Crafting his housewives out of discarded tin and muted colors, the viewer is invited into the nostalgia of a golden age of America. However, his materials that he uses, and his palate of colors suggests an undertone of sadness and tainted dreams that swam underneath the bubbly current of the times.

Chris Beck, June, painted metal, 43 x 18 x 7''

Shown side by side, Denise's maximalist paintings of enticing, naughty doughnuts and Chris's enchanting mixed media portraits of days gone by, interact with each other in an interesting way to create an environment where the consumer is confronted with his own future - and although it is flawed, it is human - which makes it beautiful.

For more information about the show, and to see more images from each artist, please visit our website - www.theartscompany.com

April comes but once a year, so listen up!

The Arts Company is always aflutter when we present April Street's work each year. Last year we missed presenting her new work in a Fall show as usual, because her opportunities in Los Angeles would not allow yet another full body of exhibition-ready work all in the same year. But not wanting to wait through another year, we persuaded her to make an exhibition of new work for us in the Spring this year.


April is one of the hardest working artists we know, and one of the most inventive. Many of our customers have had a chance to meet and talk with her over the last decade. It is unfailingly interesting to follow her annual shifts into new ideas and challenges she creates for herself as an artist. This year is no exception. Those who already know her look forward to seeing what her work is like this year. Is it figurative or abstract or...? Those who haven't had a chance to meet her will want to know how on earth she can produce such intricate and thoughtful work - all by her hand, no gimmicks - and so much of it in just a year's time.

She will be at our place for her First Art Saturday opening reception this Saturday, April 3, from 6-9 pm. Now is your chance to catch up with this deluxe artist who is always willing to talk with folks personally about how she makes the paintings she makes.

Nashville Town and Country

The February exhibit of Steven Walker's new paintings of "Nashville Town and Country" has been a long time coming, because of the demand for the work of this rising young artist in other cities. We scheduled this new series as soon as he felt he could complete the work after his last show. Steven's canvases are reminiscent of Edward Hopper's. Each new canvas has more abstract details than the last. We have not seen all of the canvases to be in the exhibit, but we are certain that they will be fresh and very well executed. To see a young painter interested in the traditional techniques of realism, but adding his own brand of insight and abstraction is particularly exciting to The Arts Company.

Steven's first passion in painting is clicking photographs of landscapes while riding down the highway. Typically, his landscapes are seen from a broad distance. But he also excels in selecting urban buildings and urban landscapes as subjects for his paintings. This particular exhibit focuses on both the town and country parts of Nashville. Seeing Nashville downtown up close and landscapes outside the city limits, presented side by side, offers a new context for thinking about this particular city through the eyes of a painter who is only recently acquainted with Nashville. He paints us as we are--a sophisticated and complex city in the middle of trees and farmhouses.

Steven will be in town to talk with guests during the First Saturday opening, 6-9 PM, February 6.