This season’s Soundwaves Gallery: THE HE(ART) OF NASHVILLE continues to grow with two more stunning additions to the Starting XI, a collection of 11 specialty artworks commissioned by Nashville SC and created by local Nashville artists using soccer-related items. Each piece will be unveiled throughout the 2025 season and auctioned off at its conclusion, with proceeds benefiting the Nashville SC Community Fund.
Today, we’re thrilled to introduce works from two Nashville-based artists, Mariah Seales and Reggie Wayne.
TEAM BUILDING
Mariah Seales
Acrylic on Canvas Draped in Soccer Net
Mariah Seales is a Nashville-based artist originally from Hopkinsville, KY, whose work uses acrylic mediums to create pixelated, “out of focus” images that reflect her perspective as a Queer, Southern Black Woman. After transitioning from the music industry in 2020, her early pieces were inspired by album covers, playfully suggesting that when you know a body of music well enough, you can recognize it even when blurred. Her featured painting, Team Building (28” x 22”, acrylic on canvas draped in soccer netting), explores the unseen effort behind both art and sport. The unfinished gridlines and exposed underpainting honor the hours of practice, repetition, and teamwork that transform small steps into something greater than the sum of its parts.
Let the Game Speak
Reggie Wayne
Mixed Media Sculpture (Wood, Turf, Plastic, Crushed Glass)
Reggie Wayne, a motivational visual artist and creative curator from Memphis now based in Nashville, is known for his use of crushed glass, vibrant mixed media, and cultural storytelling. His work has been featured on Lifetime TV, commissioned by the Memphis Grizzlies and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and collected across the U.S. and internationally. For the NSC Reuse Project, he created Let the Game Speak, a mixed media sculpture that transforms a standard soccer cone into a symbolic gramophone. The piece elevates a common object into a vessel of meaning, honoring the voices of players and supporters alike. With a base referencing the field of play, a reflective crushed-glass middle layer, and a “record” top element representing Nashville SC, the piece celebrates the voices behind the game — from player to supporter, from drill to performance.
Starting XI
Both of these pieces are on view now as part of the Starting XI at the Soundwaves Gallery in GEODIS Park, displayed alongside THE HE(ART) OF NASHVILLE, a rotating exhibition of 44 works by 44 local artists curated in partnership with the Arts & Business Council in collaboration with a three-person curatorial committee comprised of local arts leaders Michael J. McBride, Artist, Illustrator, Printmaker, Painter, and Instructor of Art at Tennessee State University; Amanda H. Hellman, Director of the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art; and Michael Mitchell (aka mikewindy), Artist and Art Education Coordinator at Tennessee State University.