OZ Arts Nashville Announces SPOILER ALERT, A Visual Art Exhibit Featuring All-New Works by Pam Marlene Taylor

Contemporary arts center OZ Arts Nashville today announced an exhibition of new works by Nashville artist and curator Pam Marlene Taylor, opening March 12, 2021. Taylor's newest tapestries, which are created on hand-built looms, focus on themes of loss and grief, with visual references to mourning wreaths and funeral floral arrangements. The exhibition's title, Spoiler Alert, warns viewers of the impending "plot twist" that all people will eventually confront death.

In this timely exhibition, the artist mourns those lost to the Covid-19 pandemic while highlighting the inequalities exhibited in medical treatment for women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals and those in poverty.

The all-new series is made from palm raffia and wool roving, meant to represent ash and bone in the works. Throughout the exhibit, Taylor has woven in artificial flowers as a nod to immortelles, the arrangements of dried or artificial flowers made to be placed on graves in cemeteries.

In a statement about the new exhibition, Taylor said:

The opening day, March 12th, 2021, of my first solo exhibition "Spoiler Alert" is also the one-year mark of my quarantine. After a year inside, I am amazed by the serendipity of this moment.

In this body of work, I am transitioning my conceptual focus towards the end of life, where I continue to find themes of feminism and inequality. This exhibition is made up of a collection of diptychs; though made of similar materials, there are obvious visual differences in each set to express how similar experiences can have drastically different outcomes. I've created wooden frames to hold suspended weavings here the same way we nicely package death, building it both figurative and literal boxes.

"Pam's stunning series of new weavings creates a meaningful memorial to a year that has been filled with change and grief, while also challenging all of us to find the beauty in all cycles of life," said Mark Murphy, Executive and Artistic Director at OZ Arts. "OZ has been pleased to work with Pam as an insightful curator and colleague in the past, and we're delighted to now feature her artwork."

Spoiler Alert opens in conjunction with OZ Arts' return to live performance with the dance installation PRISM (March 12-28). In-person appointments to view the work can be scheduled by emailing Artistic Associate Daniel Jones at daniel@ozartsnashville.org. Virtual options to access the exhibit will also be made available on the OZ Arts website and across its social media channels. The exhibit will remain open through June 2021.

Pam Marlene Taylor is an artist and curator living in Nashville, TN. As an artist, Pam weaves on hand-built looms and explores the topics of feminism and death through fiber art. She is represented in the state of Tennessee by The Red Arrow Gallery where her next solo exhibition will be held later in 2021. Pam is a graduate from Tusculum University where she double majored in Studio Art and Graphic Design and is currently earning her MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of West Alabama with plans to become an end-of-life counselor.

As a curator, she focuses on group exhibitions featuring mainly women and non-binary artists in conversation with social issues. In 2020, she partnered with fellow curator Kaylan Buteyn to co-found Stay Home Gallery, an online gallery featuring work by womxn artists from around the world creating during the global Coronavirus Pandemic. Stay Home Gallery grew to become a brick-and-mortar contemporary art gallery and artist residency for womxn and families where Pam is now the Gallery & Residency Director.

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