Artists Talk with LVA: September 3, 2026

The Ohio Valley Biennial opens at LVA on September 12th, and juror Dr. fari nzinga joins us this week to discuss it. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

As an independent curator and interdisciplinary scholar, fari nzinga approaches exhibition-making and knowledge production collaboratively. Throughout her career, be it in Havana, New Orleans, Kalamazoo, or Louisville, she has built community with artists and culture-bearers, students and educators, to document and popularize stories of creative excellence, historic achievement, and resistance to oppression. 

The largest full-scale park renovation in Olmsted Parks Conservancy's history now has its leader. fari nzinga, PhD, joined the organization in 2026 as Project Ambassador, Olmsted West, tasked with bringing the Chickasaw Park Restoration Project to life through the neighborhood voices that know it best.

2026 Ohio River Biennial Juried Exhibition

Dr. fari nzinga

Artists Talk with LVA: August 27, 2026

Debra Lott & Jamarr Cox will be in the studio to discuss their upcoming exhibit at Pyro Gallery. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

Debra Lott is an American figurative artist from South Florida, now living in Louisville, KY. Lott completed her undergraduate degree at Palm Beach International University and received her Master of Arts in Teaching Art from Florida Atlantic University. She studied privately under Graham Ingles, EC Comic illustrator.

Lott is among a select group of artists to have their artwork go to the moon (digital and analog technology in time capsules) and the first woman artist to have her painting on the lunar surface. The Lunar Codex is the first project to put the work of women artists on the Moon and also represents the first figurative realist art on the lunar surface. Lott’s work was selected by Samuel Peralta, the payload coordinator and curator for the Lunar Codex.

Expressionistic realism is what painter Jamarr Cox calls his work. That’s shorthand for art that affects the mind and heart as well as the eyes. The Louisville native likes to get viewers “into a mental corner. Not only discovering things about my art, but about themselves as well,” he says. “[It] consists of visuals that don’t always go together, but somehow seem to work well together. If one second, you’re saying, ‘that makes perfect sense’ and then the very next second, you’re saying ‘that doesn’t really make sense,’ well, then I consider that a job well done.”

Embrace by Debra Lott at Pyro Gallery

Debra Lott & Jamarr Cox

Artists Talk with LVA: August 20, 2026

Hannah Drake came to the studio to discuss her installation, Childhood Interrupted. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

Hannah Drake is a blogger, podcast host, activist, public speaker, poet, and author of 11 books. She serves as the co-executive director of IDEAS xLab and co-founder of the (Un)Known Project, which seeks to discover the hidden names and stories of Black people enslaved in Kentucky and beyond. She writes commentary on politics, feminism, and race, and her writing has been featured online at Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, The Bitter Southerner, The Lily, and Harper’s Bazaar. In 2019, during Super Bowl Sunday, Hannah’s poem, "All You Had To Do Was Play The Game, Boy," which addresses the protest by Colin Kaepernick, was shared by film writer, producer, and director Ava DuVernay, and then shared by Kaepernick. The poem has been viewed more than two million times.

Her outdoor installation, Childhood Interrupted, has been presented at Riverside Farnsley Moremen Landing, Farmington, Locust Grove, and Oxmoor Farm.

Childhood Interrupted

Hannah Drake

Artists Talk with LVA: August 13, 2026

Emily Cooper discusses her film, Willie and His Pigs, which will screen at LVA on August 16th. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

Emily Cooper is a producer and director shaped by the South — cicada summers, tornado sirens, a knack for talking to absolutely anyone, and one childhood year lived entirely in red cowgirl boots. An Emmy-nominated filmmaker, her projects have premiered at the Venice, Tribeca, and Red Sea International Film Festivals, and screened at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, and Flyover Film Festival.

Most recently, she produced the upcoming feature Ruby Road, starring Frances Fisher, Will Patton, and Lauren Holly, and was an associate producer on the music documentary Louder Than Guns, featuring Old Crow Medicine Show, which had a limited theatrical release and is currently streaming on PBS through Reel South. SXSW. She is currently in post-production on a feature she produced starring Oscar- and Grammy-nominated actors, and in pre-production on a feature adaptation of an acclaimed novel.

Willie and His Pigs film

Emily Cooper

Artists Talk with LVA: August 6, 2026

Brandon Ndife joins us in the studio this week. Ndife is a part of the Sam Gilliam Visiting Artist Program. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

Brandon Ndife is in Louisville as part of the Speed Museum’s Sam Gilliam Visiting Artist Program, managed by curator Diallo Simon-Ponte. Ndife creates sculptures that merge domestic forms with elements of the natural world through meticulous hand-building, casting, and painting. His work considers how everyday objects index life under capitalism while imagining alternative futures in which human-made and natural worlds converge. Ndife has presented solo exhibitions at Greene Naftali, New York (2024); Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); and Storm King Art Center, New Windsor (2022), and has been included in major group exhibitions such as the New Museum Triennial (2021). His work is held in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. He lives and works in New York.

Sam Gilliam Visting Artist at The Speed

Brandon Ndife