SOULIOS GALLERY BRINGS DONNA ISHAM’S IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE TO NASHVILLE
Transformation and Beauty opens October 2, featuring paintings, sculpture, and a cinematic immersive installation pairing Isham’s art with an original score by award-winning composer Mark Isham.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — This fall, Nashville audiences can experience contemporary painting in an entirely new way when Soulios Gallery presents Donna Isham: Transformation and Beauty, on exhibit October 2 - December 20, 2026.
The Los Angeles artist’s Nashville debut brings together bold large-scale paintings, expressive portraiture, sculpture and immersive art in an exhibition exploring beauty, identity, perception and transformation.
Donna and Mark Isham pictured, photo by Jake Isham.
In the Darkness... I Could Hear Your Voice, 2021, Acrylic, oil, cold wax, and crayon canvas, 67”x113"
The exhibition opens with a reception for Donna Isham on Friday, October 2, from 6:00–8:00p.m. at Soulios Gallery, Cummins Station, 209 10th Ave. S., Suite 234.
Additionally, an Artist Talk will take place at the gallery on Saturday, October 3, 12:00 pm.
At the center of the show is the immersive presentation of In the Darkness...I Could Hear Your Voice, built around Isham’s monumental hand-painted canvas and expanded through projection-mapped animation and an original musical composition by her husband and longtime creative collaborator, Emmy and Grammy Award-winning musician and Academy Award-nominated composer Mark Isham.
Rather than replacing the painting with a digital experience, light, movement and sound emerge from the original artwork. The result is part painting, part moving image and part cinematic soundscape—an experience designed to be felt as much as seen.
The exhibition is unmistakably Donna Isham’s story. Moving between abstraction and figuration, Isham uses vivid color, gestural marks and layered surfaces to explore the ways memory, vulnerability and lived experience shape how we see ourselves and one another.
Transformation and Beauty gives Nashville audiences a broader look at that practice, spanning portraiture, mixed media, sculpture, abstraction and immersive installation.
“Transformation and beauty have always been at the heart of my work,” says Donna Isham. “Beauty isn’t something fixed or perfect—it changes through memory, experience, vulnerability and time. Yet it inspires us and binds us together. Every painting in this exhibition reflects a different part of that journey. With “In the Darkness… I Could Hear Your Voice,” Mark and I wanted to extend that experience beyond the canvas, creating a space where people can slow down, breathe and simply be present.”
“Donna’s work stopped me in my tracks,” said Soulios Gallery co-founder Ana Soulios, who first encountered Isham’s work at CONTEXT Art Miami. “The scale, color and emotion immediately pull you in—and then the painting begins to move and Mark’s score surrounds you. It becomes something you don’t simply look at; you experience it. It’s avant-garde. It’s multisensory. We knew we wanted to bring that experience to Nashville.”
Isham has exhibited nationally and internationally, including participation in Personal Structures – Confluences in Venice in 2026, as well as CONTEXT Art Miami, Felix Art Fair, Intersect Aspen and Intersect Palm Springs. Her work has also been shown in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Aspen, Miami, Philadelphia and Nantucket.
For Soulios Gallery, Transformation and Beauty reflects the gallery’s mission to introduce Nashville to artists who push beyond traditional boundaries and create new ways of experiencing contemporary art.
DONNA ISHAM: TRANSFORMATION AND BEAUTY
Opening Reception for the Artist
Friday, October 2, 2026
6:00–8:00 p.m.
On View
October 2 - December 20, 2026
ABOUT SOULIOS GALLERY
Founded by Steven and Ana Soulios, Soulios Gallery presents contemporary artists whose work bridges disciplines, challenges expectations and sparks conversations about life’s larger questions. The Nashville gallery seeks to foster meaningful and lasting connections among artists, collectors and the community.
For more information, contact
Steven Soulios - Steven@souliosgallery.com
Ana Soulios - Ana@souliosgallery.com
Gallery: 615-670-9293
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