物の哀れ
Mono No Aware
Selected works by Rima Day and Lanecia Rouse
Curated by Sai Clayton
On exhibit now through January 9, 2027
Taking its title from a Japanese term describing the bittersweet awareness of impermanence, Mono No Aware (物の哀れ) brings together artworks by Nashville-based artists Rima Day and Lanecia Rouse. Both Day and Rouse construct works that evoke the temporal nature of memory and the human body. The artists use found objects, photographs, and books as carriers of inherited and collective history. In Mono No Aware, Day and Rouse’s meditative processes and material sensitivity acknowledge the passage of time and allude to our fleeting memories.
To make an appointment to see this exhibit outside the existing performance times, contact Associate Director of Programing & Partnerships Daniel Jones at daniel@ozartsnashville.org
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
RIMA DAY uses thread, fabric and paper to create artwork that is inspired by nature and the human body. Even though her background is in fashion and costuming, Day adapted her skills and knowledge in garment construction into a language to express herself through art. She studied fashion design both in her native city of Tokyo, Japan and later in New York City, and worked as a freelance custom ballet costumer in New York City and Connecticut. While working at the costume shop in Vanderbilt University, she started making 18th century dresses with used jeans as a part of upcycling projects. After her work was exhibited in several galleries, she realized that it is possible for her to use her sewing skills to create art instead of costumes. She started exploring the possibilities. She is currently investigating the idea that the needle and thread for her is the same as pen and ink for a writer. Her fabric books are in collections at the University of Iowa, Yale University, University of California, Princeton University, Yale University, other colleges and libraries as well as several private collections. She lives near Nashville, TN.
LANECIA ROUSE (b. 1978, Atlanta, GA) is an artist based between Richmond, Virginia, and Houston, Texas, whose multifaceted practice encompasses collage, abstract painting, photography, and curatorial work with non-profit organizations. Her practice lives at the intersection of art and spirituality, drawn to the questions that surface when image-making is understood as a contemplative act. Rooted in an ongoing curiosity about history — personal, inherited, and collective — her work turns toward ancestral memory, matrilineal knowledge, and the remnants of lived experience as primary material. She approaches art as a space to notice,
to gather and to reconsider the narratives that shape us and the ones we choose to carry forward. Through collage, she re-contextualizes photographs, family archival materials, found objects, and abstracted language. Language operates in her work as both mark-making and verse, contributing to the visual and conceptual layering of each work.
Rouse has exhibited at the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA (2026); Ziehr Smith Contemporary Art Gallery, Nashville, TN (2026); Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (2025); University Museum of Texas Southern University, Houston, TX (2025); Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA (2022, 2023, 2025); Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (2024); Zeitgeist Gallery, Nashville, TN (2024); Preacher Gallery, Austin, TX (2024); and the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, as part of Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage (2023), which traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, and The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Additional exhibitions include Project Row Houses, Houston, TX (2020, 2022); Asia Society Texas Center, Houston, TX (2022); Urban Zen Gallery, New York, NY (2021, 2022); Duke University Chapel (2022); and the American Church in Paris, France (2018). Her work is held in the collections of Google, Houston, TX; Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Chicago, IL; Holy Family HTX Episcopal Church, Houston, TX; Sweetgreen, Houston, TX; The American Church in Paris, France; The Brooklyn Collective, Charlotte, NC; The Everything Happens Project, Durham, NC; and Stardust Fund, Houston, TX. Her work has also appeared on the covers of Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley; Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice and Love; and The Say 2026 Poetry Anthology.
Rouse serves as Artist-in-Residence partner at Holy Family HTX Episcopal Church, where she guides the curation team for the Lanecia A. Rouse Gallery, and sits on the Board of Directors for Image Journal and 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA. She is a graduate of Wofford College and Duke University Divinity School.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
SAI CLAYTON is a Nashville-based visual artist and independent curator whose practice examines cultural inheritance, code-switching, migration, and multiracial identity. Recent curatorial projects include In Her Place at the Frist Art Museum (2026) and Where Are We? at Begonia Labs (2025). She was the 2021–22 Curatorial Fellow at the Frist Art Museum and currently serves as Curatorial Director of COOP Gallery and Programming Director at Arcade Arts Nashville. She holds a B.A. in Visual Arts from Middle Tennessee State University.
