After the Unmaking: New Ground

We are beyond unrest. Beyond protest. Beyond the desperate hope that the old system might yet correct itself. There is a moment when desperation runs out, when the thread connecting us to what was simply snaps.

This exhibition does not look back. It does not call for restoration, reform, or return. It begins from a premise: the political and economic structures that shaped Western society, the promise of capitalism, the idea of an ethical center that holds, these have not merely failed. They have unmade themselves.

To operate within a single idealized system, fixed on its own outcome, is to foreclose the unimaginable futures that exceed it. Even past acts of protest, revolution, and reform adhere to a predetermined resolution, rather than seek an open horizon. The artists in this exhibition rupture the system. They turn us instead toward experiential knowledge, toward corporeal relation, grounds from which other futures might be built.

For these artists, making is a form of inquiry, a way through the present moment, an exploratory process of discovery that is ever adapting with each new encounter.

After the Unmaking brings together artists dreaming past the ruins, not toward utopia, but toward something genuinely unconceived. The future we reach for is not a better version of the past. It is something else entirely.

David Onri Anderson is a Sephardic-Jewish artist from Algerian-French diaspora, born in Tennessee in 1993. He explores subjects of identity, sexuality, nature and spirituality through means of visionary experiences that compel paintings, drawings, and processes of world building mythologies and cosmology. He graduated from Watkins College of Art in Nashville. He has had solo exhibitions at Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Blaa Galleri in Copenhagen, DK, Harpy Gallery in Rutherford, NJ, Sheet Cake Gallery in Memphis, TN, David Lusk Gallery in Nashville, Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Institute 193 in Lexington, KY. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artnet, BURNAWAY, DailyLazy, Art & Antiques and more. In 2021 Anderson was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Anderson is the founder and curator of an artist-run space called Electric Shed Gallery that serves the community in Nashville, TN (2018-present).

davidonrianderson.com

Isabella Covert (b. 2001 Milwaukee, WI) is a sculptor and painter whose work prods at posthuman potentialities of the body. Her work investigates liberation and contradiction within synthetic biologies, and notions of reproduction, gender, gestational labor, and family structures. Shifting perspective on gestational labor and the leaky excess of bodily production, her work questions who has the authority to determine how human developments are distributed, and how advancements can restructure liberation. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States, including Pushup Gallery, New York; Echo Contemporary, Atlanta; and Purple Window Gallery, Chicago; amongst others. Covert's work has been featured in publications such as Femme Art Review, Surface Design Association, and Visionary Magazine. Covert currently lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey.

isabellacovert.com

Elise Drake is a sculptor and research artist based in Nashville, TN and Brooklyn, NY. Through textile, sculpture, and digital fabrication, her work investigates the emotional residue of contemporary life, transforming archives, accumulation, and domestic remnants into immersive environments. Drake explores the intersections of physical and digital systems, using processes of weaving, sorting, and construction to examine productivity, consumption, and care. She received her M.F.A. in Visual Art at Belmont University as a Graduate Fellowship Award Recipient and holds a B.F.A. in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art, along with a Certificate in Digital Representation & Fabrication from The Cooper Union. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including venues in Nashville, New York, Berlin, and Atlanta.

IG: @elisedrake

elisedrake.com/Bas-Relief-Text-Sculptures

elisedrake.com

Fawn Krieger is a NY-based artist, whose multi-genre works examine themes of touch, ownership and exchange. Her Flintstonian tactility and penchant for scale compressions reveal an unlikely collision of private and public, where intimate moments also serve as social ruptures. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design, and her MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited at The Kitchen, Art in General, Nice & Fit Gallery, The Moore Space, Von Lintel Gallery, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, to name a few. Her work has been written about in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, NY Arts, Flash Art, and Texte zur Kunst. Krieger is a 2019 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award Fellow, and has received additional grants from Art Matters Foundation, among others. She serves as Program Director at The Keith Haring Foundation, and she sits on the board of Soft Network.

fawnkrieger.com

Working in sculpture and video, Ron Lambert investigates the intersection between psychology and the construction of our environment. He received his MFA from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, and his BFA from the University of Connecticut. His work has shown in the Frist Art Center in Nashville TN, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, the Attleboro Arts Museum in Massachusetts, the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, and the Housatonic Museum of Art in Connecticut. He has exhibited at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville TN, Catherine Person Gallery in Seattle WA, Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia, PA, and Soil Gallery in Seattle, WA. His video works have been screened at Crosstalk Video Festival in Budapest Hungary, Videomedeja festival in Serbia, the Simultan festival in Romania, and the Sanluan Yishu project in Beijing China.

ronlambertart.myportfolio.com/work

Kiera Ohrn is an interdisciplinary artist working across video, performance, and sculpture. She received her BFA from the University of Utah and currently lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her practice examines the absurdity of contemporary life within systems of surveillance capitalism and self-commodification, considering how bodies are conditioned to perform under structures of power. Through an exploration of beauty, desirability, and self-optimization, her work considers the body as a product to be displayed, consumed, and continually improved. At the same time, she approaches the body as a site of wonder—an intricate, almost alien universe that connects us to other animals and the natural world. Kiera explores the entanglement of the organic, technological, and cultural, reminding us that everything is deeply connected. Her works have been exhibited at Gittins Gallery and Artspace through the Warnock Artist Residency.

IG: @queera_cakes

Jacob Riddle is an interdisciplinary artist and educator foraging connections between technology and the natural world. Drawing inspiration from his background in construction and labor, as well as his upbringing wading through the limestone creeks of the Appalachian foothills.

Having honed his ingenuity and cultivated experiential learning through the challenges of rural Appalachian life, Jacob now channels this unique perspective into art, academia, and community. His work serves as a testament to the power of resilience, resourcefulness, play and the coexistence of the digital and the natural world.

Jacob was the 2026 Marva and John Warnock Artist in Residence at University of Utah and his current exhibition How to Grow a Hammer is on display at the Missoula Art Museum. He has done artist residencies in Utah, Finland, Norway, Berlin, Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest and his work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, Japan, Norway, Finland, Italy, Belgium, France, Poland, The Netherlands, Australia, and in many virtual corners of the Internet.

thisisjacobriddle.com

IG: @thisisjacobriddle

Bio

Moses Williams is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His work is an intentional pursuit of the substantive and experiential aspects of what we encounter, offering a phenomenological examination of the relationship between bodies, materials, objects, and things. He is invested in contemplative and somatic practices, honoring Indigenous teaching, and respecting the sacred material earth. He believes that effective action rarely occurs in isolation; his practice is anchored in community, collaboration, and making space to actively and wholeheartedly engage with others and the natural world.

He is a professor in the MFA program at Watkins College of Art at Belmont University. Moses received a BFA from Watkins College of Art, Design & Film in Nashville, TN, and an MFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

He has recently published the book Parable Bodies, a collection of images and essays exploring his recent body of work of the same name. He has exhibited and performed throughout the United States and Europe, including Apexart – New York, The Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Ziehersmith Gallery, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Utah Museum of Fine Art, SeelenArt Galerie, Munich, Off-Space, Hof, Das KloHäuschen Art Center, Munich, Der Kulturanker, Magdeburg, Bountiful Davis Art Center, and David B Smith Gallery.

Moses has collaborated with The Nashville Ballet and Alias Chamber Ensemble. He has also worked with residents of Unit 2, the Death Row unit, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, TN.