LAUREN GREGORY
Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time
3.5.22 - 3.26.22

Red Arrow Gallery is pleased to present Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time, a solo exhibition with multi-disciplinary Artist, Lauren Gregory.  The opening reception is March 5, 2022, from 6-9pm and the show runs through March 26, 2022.

 

Lauren Gregory has returned to her home state of Tennessee.  Coming on the heels of the Nashville premiere of her powerful and heartfelt stop-motion animation, Ol’ Splashy, the Red Arrow Gallery becomes her full canvas.  Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time will include original paintings, quilts, animations, and NFT’s.  

​

Here we are together in Tennessee, the greenest and most beautiful state, on March 5th, the very juiciest moment when the bud is coming to a head and is just about to burst.  We are smack dab at the point where anticipation gives way to jubilation, an undeniably sexy time.

 

And yet, by March we are just gathering speed on the downward rush of the Ferris wheel as Spring passes us by.  The prettier it gets, the hotter it gets, the deeper the dread that’s mixed with my euphoria. 

 

The Spring Paradox I wrestle with:

 

I can’t bottle this glorious moment and keep it any more than I can take my paintings with me when I die.  

 

And also! The current moment is the only one that I have access to in any meaningful way.  

 

Like pressing a flower, or making preserves while a fruit is at its ripest, the moment dies in the process of documenting and preserving.  Looking back at this body of work, each piece was an attempt to both hold onto and let go of a moment right at its fullest bloom - a bittersweet game of catch and release.  

 

I’m here for a good time, not a long time. How ‘bout you? - Lauren Gregory Exhibition Statement

​

Lauren Gregory (she/her/hers) is a painter, animator, educator, and director who is best known for her technique of oil paint stop-motion animation, a way of making her paintings move.  Born and raised in the mountains of East Tennessee, she began as an observational portrait painter, capturing friends and family in quick one session sittings.   Lauren is the third in a lineage of southern female painters, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.  She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, and since then has created GIFs, looped video installations, and narrative animated shorts that have screened at MoMA P.S.1, the New Museum, MOCA Los Angeles, and at museums and film festivals around the world.  She has directed and animated music videos for Toro y Moi, Macy Rodman, and Uffie, and has been awarded artist residencies in Budapest, Hungary, in Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy, and in Newburgh, New York.  Lauren is a professor of experimental animation and observational painting and drawing at Parsons School of Design, Ox-bow School of Art, and Tennessee State University.  She is represented in New York by the Elijah Wheat Showroom, and in Nashville by the Red Arrow Gallery. Lauren lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee