STILL: An Elaboration on the Inanimate (2021)
April 15 to May 15, 2021
STILL: An Elaboration on the Inanimate (2021) was a mixed-media exhibition held April 15 to May 15, 2021 at The Chateau Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky. Nine artists approached the still life genre across oil and watercolor painting, painting on fabric, archival photography, and alternative photographic processes. This page is the exhibition's permanent online archive, preserving surviving installation views and artist records from a show first encountered on gallery walls.
The original prospectus asked what contemporary artists could add to a genre shaped by Greco-Roman objects, Dutch vanitas painting, wilting flowers, and familiar arrangements on a table. The exhibition answered by expanding both medium and method. Painted works shared the room with archival pigment prints, inkjet photography, lumen printing, and photographed assemblage. Inanimate subjects became a practical way to examine composition, material, domestic space, memory, and the pressure of ordinary objects without pretending the show was photography-only.
Browse the installation record and Featured Artists section below, then continue to the 2022 sequel or TCG Gallery's full exhibition archive.
Contemporary Still Life in a Physical Gallery
STILL: An Elaboration on the Inanimate opened as an in-person mixed-media exhibition at The Chateau Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky. The installation views preserve the conditions of that physical presentation: framed works hung across brick, plaster, and distressed gallery walls, with paintings and photographs sharing the same rooms rather than being separated by medium. This permanent online exhibition archive now keeps that physical chapter visible while connecting it to the later TCG Gallery program.
A Mixed-Media Still Life Exhibition
The exhibition treated contemporary still life as a broad working category rather than a narrow painting tradition. The surviving records include oil on canvas, oil on wood panel, watercolor and acrylic, oil and acrylic on fabric, archival pigment prints, an archival inkjet print, and lumen printing reproduced as an archival pigment print. Found-object assemblage also entered through photography. That range matters because the original prompt asked what artists could add to a genre already shaped by centuries of carefully arranged objects, flowers, food, domestic materials, and reminders of time.
The result was a Louisville art exhibition in which process remained visible. Painting could begin with a composed digital reference and end on canvas or wood. Fabric could function as both support and material. Photography could record a temporary arrangement of found objects, preserve a domestic scene made during a specific historical moment, or use light-sensitive paper and ultraviolet exposure before being scanned into a stable archival print. The page does not need to force every work into a single medium or interpretation. Its value comes from showing how nine artists used different tools to stay inside the still life tradition while testing its boundaries.
Photography and Alternative Process
Photography is one part of this exhibition, not its sole identity. The photographic records include archival pigment printing, archival inkjet printing, a photographed assemblage lit with natural light, and a lumen-print process built from the light sensitivity of gelatin silver paper. One work was made during the early shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving the domestic still life a precise historical setting without turning the entire exhibition into a pandemic document.
These process terms also make the page useful as a searchable art and photography archive. Viewers looking for contemporary still life photography, alternative photographic processes, archival printing, or found-object assemblage can find those practices here alongside painting and fabric-based work. The mixed-media structure is the point.
Nine Artists, One Surviving Record
The page preserves the exact Featured Artists roster published with the exhibition. Individual records retain the titles, media, dimensions, prices or availability, links, and artist-supplied context that survive on the live page. Installation photographs show how the works occupied the gallery, while the individual records make the archive useful beyond a single room or opening date.
That combination gives the exhibition a longer life than a disappearing event post. It documents what was shown, how it was presented, and which materials and processes entered the conversation. It also preserves a moment when The Chateau Gallery still mounted physical exhibitions before the TCG Gallery program moved online.
Continue Through the Archive
STILL: An Elaboration on the Inanimate belongs to the physical-era history of The Chateau Gallery and to TCG Gallery's permanent exhibition archive. View the surviving installation record and Featured Artists section below. Continue with Still II: An Elaboration on the Inanimate, browse the full exhibition archive, or explore current photography open calls for a future TCG Gallery exhibition.
Featured Artists
Allen Morris, Danielle Byington, Heidi Brueckner, Kent Klaudt, Malcolm Easton, Kerra Taylor, Linda Nelson, Suzanne Auld, Vyncex Gorlami
Two women observing artwork on a distressed concrete wall in an art gallery. One woman is wearing a brown jacket and a face mask, the other is wearing a dark jacket with pink hair.
Two framed photographs hanging on a brick wall. The left photo shows a white flower and some crumpled tissue paper or fabric. The right photo depicts a piece of scrap metal or robotic arm with a rock and some wires on a dark background.
Two framed photographs hung side by side on a white wall in an art gallery or museum, with an unfinished interior of a building visible in the background.
Two framed photographs displayed on a white gallery wall. The left photo shows a scene with a swab and some small objects on the ground. The right photo depicts a still life with a glass container filled with colorful objects and several metallic vessels inside a room with a window.
An abstract purple and white painting on a square canvas displayed on a white gallery wall.
Still life painting of four pottery jars on a shelf, with a brick wall and wooden surface background.
Painting of three oranges on a white and orange floral patterned fabric background, framed and hanging on a distressed white wall.
A painting depicting a branch with green leaves and yellow-orange fish or birds on a fabric surface, hung on a distressed wall with peeling wallpaper and exposed brickwork.
Two colorful embroidered tapestries hanging on a deteriorated wall above a dark wooden fireplace mantel.
A framed watercolor painting of a vase with yellow flowers on a textured, yellow-orange background, hanging on a wall with peeling paint and exposed holes.
Two framed paintings displayed on a rustic, holey brick wall. The top painting depicts hands holding an orange object over a diagnosis or anatomical model. The bottom painting features a skull with butterflies and flowers around it.
Painting of a human skull surrounded by colorful butterflies, flowers, and a wood-like background, framed in a gold ornate frame, mounted on a distressed brick wall.
Painting of hands with skeletal bones holding an orange on a wooden surface.
Two people viewing artwork on a textured wall with peeling paint in an art gallery. The artwork includes a painting of three oranges on a patterned cloth, a small piece with hands holding a fruit, and two framed images of a skull with butterflies and flowers.
"Machine for Wrinkling Paper Tape," Malcolm Easton, 2015, 12" x 18" Archival Pigment Print on Fine Art Rag Paper, Edition of Five - $1100. Photographed assemblage of found objects. Illuminated by natural light. Residing in Berkeley, California, I collect small domestic objects and create arrangements that exist only to be photographed. By creating images from cultural debris, I aim to preserve memories as well as question conventional domestic arrangements. - Malcolm Easton, Berkeley, California.
"Shelter-in-Place Still Life," Kent Klaudt, 2020, 8" x 12" Archival Inkjet Print, Edition of Fifty - $100. Shelter-in-Place Still Life is a still life I shot in my home during the early days of COVID-19 shelter-in-place. - Kent Klaudt, San Francisco, California.
"Decaying Organic Matter," Vyncex Gorlami, 2021, 12" x 18" Archival Pigment Print on Fine Art Rag Paper, Edition of Ten - $400. A bowl of vegetable matter simmered in a structure fire. Vyncex Gorlami is a multidisciplinary visual artist with a focus on documenting the contemporary through the lens of alternative media. Living and working in Louisville, Kentucky, Vyncex defines his style of photography as social documentary photojournalism, cycling between both independent and mainstream media. His body of work frequently omits an objective viewpoint, enticing the viewer to examine the message from an unfamiliar perspective. - Vyncex Gorlami, Louisville, KY.
"Rose in Glass," Vyncex Gorlami, 2020, 12" x 18" Archival Pigment Print on Fine Art Rag Paper, Edition of Ten - $400. A rose in a glass pipe wilts in an alleyway. Vyncex Gorlami is a multidisciplinary visual artist with a focus on documenting the contemporary through the lens of alternative media. Living and working in Louisville, Kentucky, Vyncex defines his style of photography as social documentary photojournalism, cycling between both independent and mainstream media. His body of work frequently omits an objective viewpoint, enticing the viewer to examine the message from an unfamiliar perspective. - Vyncex Gorlami, Louisville, KY.
"by," Allen Morris, 2020, 16" x 20" Archival Pigment Print - $400. These images combine Lumen Printing, a technique that capitalizes on the light-sensitive nature of gelatin silver paper combined with the effects of ultraviolet light and the chemical influences of soil to create an ephemeral image that remains sensitive to light and other environmental factors. To create an archival final print, the original images were scanned and printed as archival pigment prints. -Allen Morris, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"Creamsicle," Suzanne Auld, 2020, 21" x 21" Oil on Canvas - $1200. I work exclusively in oils on canvas, working from a digital image of a composition that I have carefully and deliberately composed. These works are my contemporary interpretation of the traditional form of the still life genre. - Suzanne Auld, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
"Birdsong," Suzanne Auld, 2019, 25" x 25" Oil on Canvas - $1500. I work exclusively in oils on canvas, working from a digital image of a composition that I have carefully and deliberately composed. These works are my contemporary interpretation of the traditional form of the still life genre. - Suzanne Auld, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
"My Life Is In Your Hands," Kerra Taylor, 2019, 7" x 7" Oil on Wood Panel - $625. I am confronted with old age and my personal fear of dying. Like a nagging depression and heavy weight, this is how I carry that burden around with me. Kerra Taylor’s narrative, figurative paintings have been exhibited nationally, internationally and featured in multiple publications. As per-course faculty, she currently teaches beginning and intermediate drawing courses at Missouri State University. On her own time, she really enjoys submitting work to shows, giving artist talks, and leading painting workshops.
"Memento Mori Study II," Kerra Taylor, 2019, 8" x 8" Oil on Wood Panel - $675. I am confronted with old age and my personal fear of dying. Like a nagging depression and heavy weight, this is how I carry that burden around with me. Kerra Taylor’s narrative, figurative paintings have been exhibited nationally, internationally and featured in multiple publications. As per-course faculty, she currently teaches beginning and intermediate drawing courses at Missouri State University. On her own time, she really enjoys submitting work to shows, giving artist talks, and leading painting workshops.
"Ageless," Linda Nelson, 2020, 16" x 16" Oil on Canvas - $285. Decorative jars from the Old World are fascinating to capture on canvas. These jars are sitting on the steps in an old town in a foreign country. - Linda Nelson, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.
"Jason and Medea's Flawed Kitchen," Danielle Byington, 2021, 9" x 12" Watercolor and Acrylic on Watercolor Paper - $300. The forced compatibility of these domestic staples in both the wallpaper and the cut flowers intends to echo the faulty domestic bliss in Jason and Medea's marriage, leaving the audience to find understanding about the couple's scenario. - Danielle Byington, Johnson City, Tennessee
"Lunch," Heidi Brueckner, 2019, 26.5" x 22" Oil and Acrylic on Fabric - $1000. This series of still-lifes is centered around food and eating, and often depicts place-settings. Strange and surprising combinations of imagery are meant to create a tension between what is and isn’t considered beautiful and normal, or revolting and undesirable. My hope is that they inspire and invite some cross-cultural comparisons. The compositions are frontal, discomforting, and intrusive to achieve psychological expression, but also to create an element of humor and fun. - Heidi Brueckner, Oakland, California.
"Breakfast," Heidi Brueckner, 2019, 22" x 28" Oil and Acrylic on Fabric - $1000. This series of still-lifes is centered around food and eating, and often depicts place-settings. Strange and surprising combinations of imagery are meant to create a tension between what is and isn’t considered beautiful and normal, or revolting and undesirable. My hope is that they inspire and invite some cross-cultural comparisons. The compositions are frontal, discomforting, and intrusive to achieve psychological expression, but also to create an element of humor and fun. - Heidi Brueckner, Oakland, California.