Artville, Nashville’s only public visual arts festival, is entering its third year with plans to be bigger, bolder and more immersive than ever. Starting Sept. 26, the festival is expanding from its original location in the Wedgewood-Houston and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods to a citywide event featuring multiple locations.
The festival’s hub this year will be in the Walk of Fame Park in downtown Nashville, featuring immersive, large-scale public art installations, alongside the American Artisan Festival, which has been a Nashville tradition since 1972. Featuring 65 contemporary handcraft and fine artisans, visitors can expect to see fine jewelry, ceramics, wood, glass, photography, printmakers, painters, metalsmiths, custom cowboy hats, leather goods and more.
In addition to the festival, there will be several Artville After Dark events each evening with activations throughout the city, including The Arcade, 5th Avenue of the Arts, the Neuhoff District in Germantown and Wedgewood-Houston.
“In just three years, Artville has grown into Nashville’s first and only citywide arts festival — and we’re just getting started,” said Samantha Saturn, Artville co-founder. “Our mission is to make visual art accessible, visible and celebrated across the entire city. This year’s lineup brings together an inspiring mix of emerging and established artists from Nashville and beyond, and we can’t wait to welcome everyone to Artville this fall to collect and enjoy all that these incredible artists have to offer.”
Over the past two years, Artville has awarded more than $320,000 to over 50 artists to create temporary, site-specific public art, murals and immersive experiences for the festival. This year the team selected artists across mediums from Nashville and beyond to receive awards to fund these larger-than-life pieces, which will be displayed in Walk of Fame Park throughout the weekend. Some of those artists include:
Brian Wooden
Brian Wooden is a Nashville-based multidisciplinary artist whose bold, illustration-driven aesthetic fuses the raw energy of skateboarding and graffiti culture with refined visual storytelling. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, Wooden’s pieces oscillate between street art spontaneity and thoughtful compositional structure, reflecting his ongoing commitment to authentic self-expression.
Caleb McLaughlin
Caleb McLaughlin is a Nashville‑based visual creative whose work spans time‑lapse, infrared, kinetic sculpture, video art and motion control. In addition to his fine‑art practice, McLaughlin works in video production — bringing storytelling, technical skill and a love of texture, rhythm and flow to his diverse visual media.
Kimia Ferdowsi Kline
Kimia Ferdowsi Kline is an artist and curator who holds an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and a B.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a Danforth Scholar. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at Turn Gallery, Marrow Gallery and 68 Projects, and in group exhibitions at institutions such as The Drawing Center and MOCA Detroit. Kline has received recognition from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and she frequently lectures at leading universities.
