Roadmaps Pop Up Show
July 26–July 27 | Opening Reception Friday from 6–9pm
COOP is pleased to present Roadmaps by Meg Jordan, Kelly Ann Cunningham, Lizzie Carsello Courtney Adair Johnson. Roadmaps is an art exhibition in two parts that aims to foster connections between emerging artists in the local art scenes in the Chicagoland and Nashville areas. Four artists will be in each version of the show. Each artist’s contribution will focus on a theme they explore, for which they will offer a “roadmap.”
Harkening back to the physicality of a roadmap’s original form, the art on display in Roadmaps invites us to reconsider how the obsolescence of a roadmap’s physical form functioned differently than its current linguistic use suggests. The art featured in this exhibit celebrates the roadmap as an enabling tool–one that allows us to explore a given terrain rather than fixate on arriving at a particular destination. The important questions this exhibition will explore include: How is navigating what is familiar different from navigating what is unfamiliar? How does art facilitate the process of navigating social change? What can local artists learn from their communities and what can communities learn from their local artists?
More about the Artists
Dr. Meg Jordan (she/her) uses a vibrant palette of acrylic paint and embroidery thread to tell stories and lessons of intergenerational black liberation and strivings. Her works for the Roadmaps exhibition encompass a how-to of surviving, resisting, and thriving in oppressive, fatalistic times. Jordan has exhibited her artwork for the United Nations COP27 in Egypt, Nashville International Airport, National Museum of African American Music, Black Lives Matter Nashville, and Planned Parenthood of Tennessee. Dr. Meg Jordan is a 2021 national award-winning artist of the Tanne Foundation, a 2023 W.K. Kellogg Foundation fellow, and a 2022 fellow of the Soho House Creative Futures Collective.
Dr. Kelly Ann Cunningham (she/her) is an artist and lecturer of philosophy currently based in Nashville and originally from Chicago. Her art utilizes painting, drawing, and print-making techniques. Cunningham’s work has been exhibited at several Chicago venues including Canopy Create, Throop Studios, and Fulton Street Collective as well as digitally in AUX Chicago’s August 2022 virtual gallery.
Courtney Adair Johnson (she/her) is an artist and curator based in Nashville, TN. Her art practice works to create sustainable communities through reuse awareness. She is interested in creating new ideas with art to generate awareness of our waste and consumption habits. Adair Johnson leads reuse projects with Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Tennessee Craft, and Springboard for the Arts (Fergus Falls). She is presently Gallery Director of Tennessee State University Art Department and Co-Builder of McGruder Social Practice Artist Residency (M-SPAR).
Lizzie Carsello (she/they/any) is a queer mixed media artist, muralist and curator. Their pieces utilize varieties of shape and color to achieve balance and evoke emotional responses from the viewer. She derives shape inspirations from natural elements and exaggerates them into a more abstract form, creating nostalgic and familiar images. Carsello has curated accessible exhibits in Nashville at Fido, Game Point Cafe, and Planned Parenthood.