The Art of The Edwin

Brent Sanders considers himself more of a stylistic documentarian than a conceptual artist. “Through the lens of my camera I compose and record my surroundings and travels. The landscape, both urban and rural, have been my primary focus throughout most of my career.”

A fifth generation Chattanoogan, Sanders has spent the last 25 years working as a professional artist. He began his career as a video game designer and graphic artist, before becoming a full time painter in 2000. “Ultimately, the relationship between value and shape is more important than a realistic representation of my subjects. The work is representative of the energy that encompasses everyone and everything around us,” he says.

Myles Freeman was born in 1972 in Meridian, Mississippi, and grew up in Nashville. For 16 years, he was mostly feral: building a primitive cabin in the North Carolina mountains, drifting around the margins of the country, working itinerantly, living in his truck, and “somehow earning a degree,” he says. “I was devoted to rock and mountain climbing, river and ocean travel, and working as a wilderness educator.”

While convalescing from surgery at age 40, Freeman began drawing and then painting with vintage oils found in his grandfather’s barn. Thanks to support from family and patrons, not to mention what he calls his own sheer stubbornness, making art is now a full-time vocation.

Amber Droste’s very diverse arts education led to many different interests within the visual arts. She studied in Boston and Florence, Italy, where she focused on fresco and painting restoration. In 2001, she received her BFA from Pratt Institute in New York and subsequently earned a graduate degree at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Droste’s paintings are detailed, densely layered abstract works. She works from multiple perspectives and vanishing points, creating a tornado of visual incident – reminiscent of layers of graffiti. Highly worked canvases create a narrative using repeated forms, lines, and colors. Hers are distinctly modern images with modern narratives, executed in the traditional materials of pencil and paint. The notion of craft is always present in her work, as is the search for beauty and order. She takes images of chaos and confusion and then withdraws from those visuals some semblance of beauty and a subdued sense of harmony and stability. 

Kevin Bate moved to Chattanooga in 1995. He had flirted with a career in art a few times (bought it drinks, took it out on Valentine’s Day, etc.) but was never quite able to commit to it. In 2011, all of that changed. Married with a newborn, Kevin decided (for some crazy reason) that this was the perfect time to attempt another launch of his art career. One afternoon while his infant son was sleeping, Kevin snuck out to the shed to look for art supplies. What he found instead was plywood, house paint and one inch brushes.

Understandably, his first paintings were quite large. This is probably how he jumped to murals so quickly. Since then, his works have appeared everywhere from the Southside, MLK Blvd, the North Shore, Highland Park and venues such as Track 29. If it’s a painting of a large face on a building, it’s probably his. Kevin (who abhors the traditional art-speak artist’s bio) has recently finished a memorial mural for the Fallen Five. It is the newest addition to The McCallie Walls Mural Project, a neighborhood beautification and paying-artists-a-living-wage-for-their-work project that he also curates. Lately, he has been branching out further into the South East and has painted a mural commissioned by Usher.

Hollie Berry is an artist living and working in beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee. Originally from Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Studio Art in 2009. Berry first made her mark in Chattanooga with her “Dewdles” or drawings in the dewy grass of Coolidge Park, then moved on to more permanent public art projects like interactive art installations and murals. When in her studio at Chattanooga WorkSpace, she focuses on more traditional oil paintings of her favorite subjects: Horses. You can find more examples of her work on her website: www.HollieBerryArt.com