Sanabria people by Denise Stewart. Image courtesy of the artist.

CLARKSVILLE, TN – Nine female artists from four states took over the Crouch Gallery of the Customs House Museum on August 11. While the museum has featured women artists in its annual Women’s History Month exhibitions each March, this is the only annual show with a specific group subject matter – the female form.

Taking its lead from an online blog started by artists Alia El-Bermani, Diane Feissel and Sadie Valeri in March of 2009, the Customs House is one of many galleries and museums across the country to showcase these exhibitions. While most feature contemporary realists, the Clarksville museum has showcased artists who work in multiple styles.

This year’s lineup includes two artists from the Knoxville area. Denise Stewart Sanabria received her BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. Sanabria paints both hyper-realist “portraits” of everything from people to produce. Known for her wooden cut out portraits, Denise has two installations in the museum show. One of which includes a male to this group of charcoal and pastel pencil plywood drawings as a reverse twist on the concept of "The Male Gaze". Most recently, her piece “# 130 Classic Coral Creme Glitter” was accepted into the International Guild of Realism's 11th annual exhibit, held at Gallery 1261 in Denver.

Mira Gerard has two paintings in the museum show. Her portraits are made with muted hues, full of movement. The figures seem to flow into their surroundings. Mira says of her work “Over the last seven years, my paintings have been informed by my experiences in Lacanian psychoanalysis. It is a practice of speaking freely without preconception, and is in many ways similar to painting, where I imagine, take apart, and piece together images based on sources ranging from film stills to personal memories. The resulting surface contains scars from buried layers of paint, messy decoration, and reinvention”.

Other artists exhibiting in the show include Chantel Lynn Barber, Sharon Rusch Shaver, Karla Tucker, Terri Jordan, Tonja Sell, Julie Clark Howard, and Pennsylvania artist Ann Piper. Women Painting Women will be on exhibit through October 23. Located at the corner of Second and Commerce Streets, the Customs House Museum is the second largest general museum in Tennessee.