Details

First Name	Tricia
Last Name	Townes
Username	tricial
Bio	Tricia Townes makes work to heal herself and others. Her goal is to universalize common experiences of dysfunction and unease in order to heal them. Specifically, Townes produces psychological portraits of friends and family members, socially engaged artworks, and compositions of designs from marginalized cultures that position them as first-class US citizens. Townes lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee, and has an MFA from UNC-Greensboro. She has exhibited in Miami, New York, and Chicago. Townes has also participated in residencies at Skowhegan, The Fine Arts Work Center, and MassMoCA, among others.
Website	http://www.tricialynntownes.com
Country of residence	United States (US)

Statement

Tricia Townes makes works that seek to heal herself and various communities that matter to her. She began working with what is now an ongoing series of artworks with her family and friends as subjects. Townes describes her family as a “normal dysfunctional” one in need of healing, begging for psychological analysis. This work is a moving target, and probably will never be completed to her satisfaction.

Townes has described the family unit as the first and most intimate microcosm of the larger communities that exist in the world. She has made and is in the process of making socially engaged artworks that focus on healing aspects of some larger communal issues including redlining, “urban renewal,” urban food deserts, and the tragic legacy of slavery. Townes has also made a series of paintings celebrating communities of difference. Those works are compositions of designs from marginalized cultures that position them as first-class US citizens.
Except for the socially engaged artworks, all of them are made with acrylic paint, either on canvas, gauze, or domestic linens. Townes decided to make these works as beautiful as she can as a part of her process. She believes that the creation of beauty and its contemplation is a healing modality.

The work that Townes does is timely because currently there are so many communities in need of healing across the board, beginning with the proto community, The Family. Townes sees “normal dysfunction” as a universal theme shared by many families. Her impulse to heal herself and others is a way to build bridges from the margins of her African American experience, empathetically to other marginalized communities, and to the center of the Caucasian world.

Exhibitions

2022 Satellite Art Show, Miami, FL
Holiday Small Works Show, Galerie Tangerine, Nashville, TN
Woman Made Gallery Members Show, Chicago, IL
Art of the South, Group Exhibition, Zeitgeist Gallery, Nashville, TN
Generations: 30 Years of Woman Made Gallery, Group Exhibition, Chicago, IL
The Deeply Rooted, Group Exhibition, Woman Made Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
Feminist Connect Exhibition, Texas Tech, Lubbock, TX

2021 A Stilled Life Group Show, CHA Artspace, Chattanooga, TN
Pulp Group Show, Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Woman Made Gallery Member’s Show, Chicago, IL
Paradice Palase Member’s Show, Brooklyn, NY
Les Femmes Folles: Feminist Connect, (online), Sally Brown and Leslie C. Sotomayor, curators
One in a Year, The Painting Center, New York, NY (online), Shazzi Thomas and Kathy Cantwell, curators
Rise, Group Show, Play and Inspire Gallery (online)
When Words Fail, Group show, Visionary Art Collective (online), Grace Lang, curator
Women in Abstraction, Group Show, New Art Center, Newtonville, MA, Ola Aksan, curator

2020 Collective Memories: Creative Expressions through Contemporary Art, MTSU, Murfreesboro, TN, Barbara and Leroy Hodges, curators
Undertones, Black Women Rise, Group Show, Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center, Hendersonville, TN
First, Second, and Third Person at Pierogi, Group Show, Pierogi Gallery, NYC

2019 Twist and Twine, Group Show, Paradice Palase, Brooklyn, NY

2018 Let This Be America, Solo Show, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Of Women Group Show, Rockaway Artists Alliance, Rockaway Park, NY
Conversations, Group Show, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2017 Wise Blood, Group Show, Paradice Palase, Brooklyn, NY
Present Tense Group Show, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Group Show at Overhang Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Interests and medias

Interests	Drawing, Filmmaking / Video art, Illustration, Mixed media, Painting, Photography, Textile art
Painting medias	Acrylic, Oil
Drawing medias	Graphite, Ink, Sketch
Filmmaking / video art medias	Video installation, Single-channel video, Computer animation
Textile medias	wool, cotton
Photography	Digital image