10″x20″; cyanotype with watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, collage; 2025; Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Billy Renkl: A Weedy Garden
at David Lusk Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee USA
28 February-11 April 2026
Featuring twenty-one collages by Billy Renkl created for The Weedy Garden, a children’s book with words by New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl and illustrations by her brother, Billy. The collages chronicle the small discoveries and quiet magic of childhood spent outdoors, mapping moments of observation, curiosity, and play within a backyard ecosystem. Drawing from shared memories of growing up in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, Renkl and his sister reflect on a landscape shaped by native plants, passalong flowers, and a garden inherited from their mother’s farming roots. This “weedy garden,” as Margaret Renkl describes it, resists formal aesthetics in favor of ecological purpose, welcoming birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals alike. It becomes both a physical environment and a philosophy, one rooted in care, attention, and coexistence.
10″x20″; cyanotype with watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, collage; 2025; Courtesy of the artist.
The Renkls recently collaborated on The Comfort of Crows. That prize-winning book from 2023, reviewed in Kolaj 39, featured 52 essays by Margaret reflecting on the environment, family, and climate change, each of which was illustrated by Billy. The Weedy Garden, published by Greenwillow Books, is their first children’s book collaboration.
(text adapted from material provided by the gallery)
INFORMATION
David Lusk Gallery
516 Hagan Street
Nashville, Tennessee 37203 USA
(615) 780-9990
Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM