Exhibitions
HERB WILLIAMS: COLOR SHADE
Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery / 222 Rep. John Lewis Way S. March 20 - May 9th (Reception: March 20 5:00pm - 8:00pm)
Herb Williams
The Haley Gallery, a contemporary art gallery at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum, presents color SHADE. The exhibition will feature sculptures made of crayon as well as photography by artist Herb Williams. It opens Thursday, March 20, and is free and open to the public through Friday, May 9.
Inspired by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Williams explores the ephemeral nature of color and form in landscapes. His process involves interacting with nature, documenting color compositions and removing human traces, which creates an evolving dialogue between art and the environment. During the pandemic, he developed a practice of engaging with trees, allowing them to dictate his compositions and shifting perceptions of space and color. He refers to this technique informally as "color shading," a process that creates new and informal compositions to collaborate with nature, document it and then remove any trace of human expression. The exhibition color SHADE reveals Williams’ work experimenting with color beneath and within the canopy of found spaces that are typically hidden in plain sight.
Opening reception
On Thursday, March 20, the gallery will host a reception with the artist to celebrate the exhibition’s opening. The reception, which will take place between 5 and 8 p.m., is free and open to the public.
All work on view in Haley Gallery is available for purchase. Prices and details are available upon request. The Haley Galley is located at 224 Rep. John Lewis Way S., Nashville. Visit the Haley Gallery’s website for more information on the exhibition and the gallery.
About Herb Williams
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1973, Herb Williams received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College. Upon graduation, he worked at a bronze foundry in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he cast hundreds of sculptures, including the last work of photo-realist Duane Hanson, titled “Man on Riding Lawnmower.”
Since moving to Nashville in 1998, Williams has received The Joan Mitchell Foundation Museum Purchase Grant (2005), the Next Star Artist Award (2008) and was sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (2011). Most recently his artwork is being featured as the Neiman Marcus Look Book Fantasy Gift of 2025. He received his first public art commission in 2017 to create “Skylake” for the Smith Springs Community Center and was awarded another public art commission to create six larger-than-life sculptures for the International Concourse at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
His artwork was featured at the 2008 Inaugural art exhibit in Washington, D.C., and he opened “Plunderland,” a walk-in room installation consisting of almost 500,000 crayons at the art gallery Rare in Manhattan. Williams just completed a large-scale outdoor installation at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas, which comments on wildfire devastation in the area and raises awareness for education, safety and future planning. A collection of 70 of his sculptures and paintings was exhibited in Shanghai, China. Recently, his multistory graffiti paintings have been featured along with internationally known street artists in the Nashville Walls Project.
