Nashville, Tennessee, is a city centered around and built on music. But as it grows, there is an opportunity for appreciation of a different kind of art form. This expansion was the goal of CASS Contemporary upon arrival to Nashville after establishing itself within the art curating and business scenes in Florida. Having found its footing and permanent space in Nashville at 408 Chestnut St., founders Jake and Cassie Greatens recently opened a new dual exhibit space centered around artist Tristan Eaton. The collection is meant to bring Eaton’s global influence, innovative style and focus on pop culture to Nashville. In an interview with The Hustler, co-founder Cassie Greatens discussed the new exhibit, the purpose of CASS and the growing need for art galleries in Nashville.
The conversation began with an overview of what CASS is all about. First, she shared a bit about the dynamics of running the gallery with her husband and how it all began.
“My husband, Jake Greatens, and I have owned CASS for almost 15 years. He is the creative director, so he does all of the curating and anything creative. That’s where his mind is, and I do a lot of the business aspect of it,” Greatens said. “We wanted to open up something really cool in Florida, a different type of gallery, and that’s kind of the birth of CASS Contemporary in Tampa. We began consulting and doing art consulting for developers or individuals, and then we do our collection management, so we manage people’s art collections. Those are the three different parts of our company.”
CASS officially opened in Nashville at its current location in September, where they have rotating exhibitions every two to four months. An overarching theme of CASS exhibits has been bringing collections and artists from around the world to Nashville. This was extremely prevalent in their first exhibit, “CLTRL CNTXT,” which showcased seven different artists from seven different countries in an attempt to show the commonality across them.
Tristan Eaton is a Los Angeles-based painter and muralist known for fusing fine art, street culture and graphic design into layered works seen on walls from Paris to Shanghai to Las Vegas. He is a multidisciplinary artist and creative director who works across muralism, painting and commercial design with brands like Nike, Hublot and SpaceX. His work sits in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. With its latest exhibits, “Lately” and “Women of Marvel” by Eaton, CASS does not bring Nashville into other countries but rather into another world entirely by portraying the duality of human experiences. Greatens shared about working with Eaton and their excitement over these new exhibits.
“We’ve been working with Tristan forever. He does large murals all over the world and huge campaigns like the Sphere in Las Vegas and working with SpaceX to be the first artist to ever have his art go up into space and come back,” Greatens said. “He had a solo exhibit a few years ago at the Long Beach Museum of Art and has pieces in MoMA, so he’s world-renowned. We’re so excited about bringing him to Nashville. He’s never exhibited here.”
One critical aspect of Eaton’s exhibit at CASS is that two exhibits and two sides of him as an artist will be on display in one space. More specifically, Eaton’s “Lately” collection includes 14 works on wood that showcase his talent with spray paint along with humor, love, loss and the many facets of what it means to be human. On the other side of the exhibit is “Women of Marvel,” which is a collection of portraits of female Marvel characters with Eaton’s own artistic stylizing. It is worth noting that Eaton holds a rare licensing partnership with Marvel, which allows for these works to be displayed and is a testament to his grasp of the brand.
Items will be available for purchase from both exhibits; however, at CASS, they want everyone to feel a part of the showcase, so there are multiple different price points and prints available as well. Greatens emphasized that this idea of accessibility and drawing new audiences, like the people of Nashville, to this kind of modern art is really important.
“We already have great galleries here and incredible artists who live here. We’re just trying to add CASS’ point of view to that, and what we do that we think stands out a little within an already great landscape,” Greatens said. “We’re excited to share that with the city by showing artists from all over the world and really exposing people who love art to great art but also welcoming people who maybe don’t even like art yet and end up falling in love with it just by walking into our gallery or coming to an opening.”
Additionally, Greatens expressed excitement about drawing in a Vanderbilt audience.
“We’d love for Vanderbilt, all the students, ones that are into artwork, ones that are in the art program or not, and we would love for them to come,” Greatens said. “We’re just kind of excited to be here and show all the different exhibits that we have planned. They’re all so different, so I think it hits so many different groups of individuals.”
Whether you are a big Marvel fan, an art fanatic or just looking for something new to experience in Nashville, CASS welcomes you to check out this latest collection along with its permanent collection. These exhibits are available through Feb. 15, 2026, and CASS has rotating exhibits planned through 2027.
