Exhibitions

ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL & FRIENDS: THE KITCHEN

Julia Martin Gallery / 444 Humphreys St. April 3, 2021 - May 29, 2021

Robert Ellis Orrall

Julia Martin Gallery is proud to present Robert Ellis Orrall’s The Kitchen, celebrating 30 years of creating art in Nashville. Orrall is a self taught artist, song writer, producer and founder of Infinity Cat Records. He’s written hits for Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire and Lindsay Lohan to name a few. He sired one of Nashville’s most beloved rock bands, Jeff the Brotherhood - with whom he built Infinity Cat into Nashville’s favorite rock label almost 20 years ago. His playful autobiographical paintings live in a vast number of collections. With this long-awaited show, Orrall’s farewell to Nashville ends as most ideas in Nashville begin, with an idea hatched in a kitchen.

This particular kitchen began as most of his works do. “Building from the back” he lays in the walls, builds the countertops, installs the dishwasher, refrigerator and other appliances eventually painting himself into the scene to recreate a memory or relay a funny tale. However, this yellow kitchen – originally designed to house a tribute to 1960’s covergirl Twiggy (which will be included in the exhibition) – sparked a question. “I wonder what other artists might put in my kitchen?” Thus was born The Kitchen. Orrall photographed the empty kitchen, mass produced a multitude of various sized canvas prints and doled them out to damn near every known artist in greater Nashville. Roughly  50 artists have now had their way with Orrall’s yellow kitchen over the last 4 years and we feel privileged to serve up the resulting casserole for you on April 3rd, 2021.