Monthaven Art and Cultural Center

Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center
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Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center
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Exhibitions

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Exhibition Schedule

The MACC presents a dozen local, regional and international exhibitions every year. Admission is free. Donations are appreciated and contribute to continued arts programming.

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Lineage, Memory, Cultural Identity

La Femme Fatale

Nashville artist Nadine Shillingford enjoys bringing her ideas to life using charcoal on paper. Her art captures people in everyday situations and evokes their spirit by highlighting their facial expressions. It’s a whimsical approach that gives vitality to her work. A self-taught artist, Shillingford has mastered her craft through trial-and-error and a lot of practice. Thanks to her disciplined, daily social media posts, she has attracted an international following for her art.

Shillingford’s exhibition at the MACC plays off the stock character of the femme fatale. In fiction, these beautiful and seductive women bring disaster to men with whom they become romantically involved. To be sure, Shillingford depicts the femme fatale as a powerful, independent and sometimes mysterious female character. But her nuanced and expressive renderings also address cultural perspectives and historical anxieties surrounding Black female agency and sexuality.

Through layered marks, soft color, and expressive contrasts, the works explore femininity, resilience, aging and quiet strength across the Black diaspora. The raw immediacy of charcoal paired with the warmth of pastel creates intimate portraits that honor lineage, memory and cultural identity. Timed to coincide with Black History Month, the exhibition celebrates Black womanhood, lived experience and the ongoing legacy of storytelling through art.

La Femme Fatale: Lineage, Memory, Cultural Identity will feature 20 charcoal drawings on paper in the MACC’s Puryear Gallery from Jan. 14 to Feb. 15, 2026. A reception and artist talk will take place Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026 from 3 to 5 p.m. Admission is free with a $10 suggested donation. For more information, call (615) 822-0789.

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The Paintings and Sculptures of Polly Cook and Somers Randolph

The Art of Love

Monthaven is welcoming Valentine’s Day with an exhibition titled “The Art of Love: Paintings and Sculptures by Polly Cook and Somers Randolph.” Polly Cook, a Texas-based artist,” has long been inspired by themes of love. Indeed, love is at the heart of all of her artwork, along with the accompanying emotions of longing, regret, desire, passion, joy and hope. Cook insists that her works not be interpreted as literal stories. Rather, they are emotional narratives and visual poetry. They are meant to be experienced as well as seen.

Cook grew up in Nashville and attended her first pottery class at the art center at Centennial Park when she was 10. Her love of romantic poets, such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats, along with the Pre-Raphaelite artists took her to England when was 16. There, she was introduced to German Expressionism and the German Realists of the 1920s. Both movements would exert an influence on her style.

A California transplant, Somers Randolph became a pioneer of Nashville’s coffee culture when he lived here in the 1990s. He opened Blue Sky Court in 1991, which is considered Music City’s first true coffeehouse, predating Bongo Jave, Fido and Starbucks. As an artist, he quickly became known for his abstract sculptures, with their delicate curves and arcs, intricate whorls and spirals, and sensuous undulating Knots.

Randolph, whose studio is now located in Santa Fe, NM, showcased his spectacular abstract sculptures at the MACC over the summer of 2025 as part of an exhibit titled “Canvas + Stone,” which also featured the encaustic paintings of Nashville artist Kathryn Dettwiller. For his Valentine’s exhibition, Randolph will be bringing some of his stylish sculptural hearts. Like all of his works, these colorful hearts will be polished to absolute perfection. They are guaranteed to get visitors into the Valentine’s spirit.

For more information about The Art of Love, call (615) 822-0789.

 

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Monthaven's

Upcoming Exhibitions

Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center presents some of the world’s greatest art in galleries that are intimate and inviting.  Subscribe to our newsletter and discover the magic that awaits.

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The Graphics of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

From the Moulin Rouge to Music City

Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center is pleased to present From the Moulin Rouge to Music City: The Graphics of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The exhibit will feature approximately 50 works of the famed French artist, including a series of graphics and original drawings.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s nascent career was transformed in 1890, when he secured a significant commercial poster commission. Arguably, the work that ensued altered the trajectory of art history. The young, aristocratic Frenchman was engaged to create a design that would extend the extraordinary popularity of Le Moulin Rouge, Paris’ hottest cabaret of the day. He struck just the right note with his oversized (4’ x 6.5’) lithograph. In fact, it was such a sensation that it dissolved the artificial boundary between the two disciplines of fine art and advertising art, making way for Pop Art to appear 60 years later.

Toulouse-Lautrec was quickly anointed as the leading visual chronicler of the bawdy nightlife occurring in Montmartre, on the city’s outskirts. As a habitué of the district’s rowdy bars, thriving cafes and provocative cabaret performances, his work was honest, compelling and unlike anyone else’s. It took its cues from the influence of 18th century Japanese woodblock prints and showcased unusual, unattractive color combinations, surprising perspectives, uncommon cropping, and heavy black lines. Parisians and collectors could not stop clamoring for more. And, because Lautrec was featuring his personal chums—-like can-can dancers, bar owners, prostitutes, fellow patrons, waiters, and clowns—-in his posters, he was simultaneously transforming them into superstars. It lent his work an authenticity that could not be feigned. It also set the stage for the culture of celebrity worship that would come to the fore decades into the future.

From the Moulin Rouge to Music City will be on display in the MACC’s galleries from Feb. 21 to April 5, 2026. For more information, call (615) 822-0789.

 

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Robin Willis

HEALING ARTS COORDINATOR

Robin Willis is the MACC’s Healing Arts Coordinator. She also works as the Exhibition and Events Manager and Director of Outreach. Robin has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Clemson University with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a multi-discipline artist with emphasis in writing, mixed media abstract painting, alternative process photography, collage, and book arts and binding. In addition to her art practices, she holds several healing modalities certificates, such as extensive kundalini yoga teacher training and education, Reiki master, systemic family constellation facilitator, and depth psychology-based therapy trainings. As an avid learner, she explores and encourages others in their exploration in art, psyche, and our relationship to the micro and macro worlds within and around us. Influenced by John Muir’s quote, When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe, she fuses art, healing, and organization throughout her work and personal life as a creative-scientist minded person.

Kaylin Warden

Creative Design and Operations Manager

Kaylin Warden serves as the MACC’s Creative Design and Operations Manager. In this post, she oversees the organization’s graphic design work for exhibitions, events and special projects. She also coordinates the MACC’s arts outreach activities and assists with bookkeeping, among other duties. Kaylin, above all, is passionate about the arts. It comes as no surprise, then, that she is now pursuing a master’s degree in art history. When she’s not at the MACC, you can find her reading her favorite books (especially ones dealing with maritime mysteries), cooking, gardening, playing with her cat and two dogs, and cheering for the Nashville Predators.

Ruth Chase

Regional Arts Director
Ruth Chase is the Regional Arts Director of Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center, joining the team in 2023. For Ruth, the job is all about community, bringing people together to uplift and educate artists and art lovers alike. Her role at Monthaven is to strengthen the local artist community and build connections that will enrich Hendersonville and our surrounding communities through art exhibitions, art education, and opportunities for regional artists.
 
Prior to joining Monthaven, Ruth worked in the arts for over 30 years and is a multimedia artist and graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. Her artistic practice is inquiry-based and engages in community bridge-building. She was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the City of Los Angeles, curated and juried exhibitions, and has taught at the Crocker Art Museum.
 
Ruth was awarded an Artist-in-Residence for Artist Activating Communities through a grant from the California Arts Council for three consecutive years. Her film Belonging screened at both the 18th Annual Nevada City Film Festival and Wild & Scenic Film Festival. She has received the Legendary Female Artist of Venice award, and she has exhibited in The Crocker Kingsley, the Museum of Northern California Art, and the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute. Ruth also continues her work as a Curatorial Consultant and Art director for the Californian Indigenous Research Project, where she has worked with the local tribe since 2018. 
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