Kinley Chattanooga Southside is celebrating local female artists with curated commissioned art placed throughout the hotel. Located in the city’s Southside district, the Kinley opened March 4.
Handmade, locally curated paintings, weavings and prints can be found in the hotel’s lobby, coffee and cocktail bar, and in each of the 64 guest rooms.
A large mural by Alecia Buckles and Briah Gober adorns the exterior of the hotel.
“We wanted to showcase the work of some of Chattanooga’s talented female artists, both inside and outside The Kinley Hotel,” says Mitch Patel, president and CEO of Vision Hospitality Group, developer of Kinley Chattanooga Southside. “Creating a sense of arrival is important to us – it adds to the welcoming environment.”
Communal Kaleidoscope
Artists Briah Gober and Alecia Buckles focused on the theme of togetherness as they developed “Communal Kaleidoscope.”
The large-scale exterior mural explores a diverse and abstracted outlook through a kaleidoscope of color and shape.
“We wanted this project to speak about community, diversity and belonging,” explains Gober and Buckles. “We were both inspired by how many females were involved in the Kinley Chattanooga artistic process as a whole, so naturally, we leaned toward the idea of quilt making and the history of stitching various fabrics together to create something unique.
“There are motifs that include connections between people, as well as traces of the city and its vibrant landscape.”
Tiny Blue Planetary Alignment
Located in the Kinley Chattanooga’s lobby, “Tiny Blue Planetary Alignment” by Janet Campbell is one of the first pieces of commissioned art that greets guests upon entering the hotel.
“Tiny Blue” is a monotype (a printmaking process where the artist paints a design using ink onto a metal or plexi type surface, which is then run through a printing press to emboss the ink into paper) work of art.
“’Tiny Blue’ was part of a series of experimental works that used line, shape and color to evoke a sense of the way events in life interplay and line-up in relation to each other,” Campbell says.
The Magnolia Story
Abstract artist Anna Carll’s “The Magnolia Story,” which measures 6 by 11 feet, local was curated for The Kinley’s lobby and coffee bar and is made from acrylic, alcohol inks and Irish waxed linen thread weaved onto 300-pound Arches Watercolor Paper.
“The Magnolia Story began with the tending of my 70-foot magnolia tree named Bella,” Carll says. “The pod images are based on the shape of the magnolia bloom centers that drop from the tree after dispersing bright red seeds.”
Abstract art
Curated by Amber Droste, a local abstract paint artist and stained-glass artisan, this current body of work began in 2016, amid what she viewed as a societal shift in America.
“Highly worked canvases create a narrative using repeated forms, lines and colors,” Droste says. “I work from multiple perspectives and vanishing points, creating a tornado of visual incident reminiscent of layers of graffiti.
“They are distinctly modern images with modern narratives, executed in the traditional materials of pencil and paint.
“Though my paintings contain a lot of visual information, I try to be mindful to retain some semblance of calm and quiet. However, I don’t treat the canvas as a precious object. I make mistakes. And I welcome them and embrace them. I purposely make the canvas ugly to then try to make it beautiful again.”
Droste says she hopes the paintings convey a sense of optimism. “Solutions and beauty can come from disharmony.”
Room art
Kinley Chattanooga Southside’s rooms include works by Hollie Chastain, a local mixed media artist and award-winning illustrator, that combine gouache painting with clipped vintage ephemera.
“I keep a plethora of magazines handy, and finding the wild, playful images I wanted was easy. It was then hard to narrow them down,” Chastain says. “Capturing the Chattanooga vibe through color and activities was important to me, so I focused on our mountains and streams.”
Information is available at www.kinleychattanooga.com.
Source: Kinley Chattanooga Southside