By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The American Civil War was not the first war to be photographed. There is a small amount of photography that exists from the Mexican War and more from the Crimean War.
But by the time of the Civil War, the photography medium had expanded to the extent that Americans saw, in crisp black and white, the physical results of war rather than simply hearing about them. Roughly one million images were left behind.
In his Customs House Museum show, “Dane Carder: Ghosts and Hopes,” Nashville artist Dane Carder has taken inspiration from these historic images and has rendered them in paint and mixed media. Some of these works are crisp, others are blurry. Some are massive in scale while others are tiny. Yet all deliver the emotion of a war that continues to reach across time.
The massive acrylic panel, “Spark,” is a painting of militant abolitionist John Brown, who was hanged for treason after leading seizing a U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Despite being a recreation of a well-known photo, the painting renders the set of Brown’s lip in a weightier fashion that what was captured in film.
In some paintings, Carder’s paintbrush treats the subjects with a blurred focus. The artist purposely did this as a way to blur the lines between “us” and “them,” a mentality that he says “ignites war.”
Some paintings feature a period-style wallpaper, such as “Men of War #023” and “The Presence of Absence 1.” This injects the show with a hint of sad whimsy. It somehow humanizes these long-ago subjects, reminding the viewer that they once lived a life as ordinary as we now do.
In his artist’s statement, Carder says, “This body of work is not simply about the Civil War. It is about an emotion: the layered, all-encompassing emotion that accompanies a life lived. It is about being passionate enough to fight, compassionate enough to grieve, honest enough to be open. It is about ghosts and hopes.”
The show certainly carries a sense of the ghostly and is one that students of history, or of life, should see. It runs through Jan. 12 at the Customs House Museum at 200 S. Second Street.
Find more information on the museum’s website at www.customshousemuseum.org.
Spark” is a painting done in acrylic on panel. It depicts the militant abolitionist John Brown, who worked with Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad.
“The Presence of Absence 1” adds a touch of sad whimsy to the show.
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.