Vignette: Ashley Cathey

Ashley Cathey at the installation of her mural for the Kroger on West Broadway. Photo: Sarah Katherine Davis Photography.

Ashley Cathey is a painter whose creative journey began with performing arts before she was eventually encouraged to develop her visual art talents, which, up until then had been purely for her own personal edification, by exhibiting in Chicago before returning to her native Louisville. She came to prominence when ArtsReach commissioned Cathey to create a series of portraits for their annual Keepers of the Dream celebration at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. In 2016 her work was featured on the cover of LEO Weekly as part of an extensive story on artists of color in Louisville.

“Cherena” by Ashley Cathey, Acrylic, graphite on canvas board, 16x20in framed, $400

Cathey is currently featured in Looking Up: Heroes For Today – An LVA Exhibit at Metro Hall, which is on exhibit through January 11, 2019 at Louisville’s Metro Hall, 511 West Jefferson Street. The work included there consists of portraits of Women Of Color in acrylic and oil, striking in their use of non-traditional colors for skin tones and an almost complete omission of the hair. While the faces are rendered in rich, graphic layers of texture, where the hair would be Cathey has left mostly empty space, with perhaps a few marks to indicate the shape or direction of the women’s hair.

“So often Black women are judged by their hair, and I wanted to take that away and let them be judged for themselves. I didn’t want to focus on their color or their hair,” explains Cathey, “but on the colors of the paint, the expression on the face.”

“I wanted to do portraits of people that aren’t often acknowledged, such as single mothers. They are rarely, if ever represented at all, much less for what they accomplish: raising kids, feeding a family - simple things that many of us take for granted, but for which some of these women are heroic acts.”

Cathey’s portraits are largely these kind of “ordinary” women for whom just living can seem like an act of courage: surviving against economic challenges and fighting an uphill battle just to make it through the day. They include refugees and immigrants for who home is no longer viable.

“Kaila" by Ashley Cathey, Acrylic, graphite on canvas board, 9x12in, NFS

But some of her subjects are women striving to make a difference in the community that surrounds them, people such as Dr. Kaila Story, who is Associate Professor in both the Department of Pan-African Studies and Department of Women's & Gender Studies at the University of Louisville. “Her work on Strange Fruit (a weekly podcast of musings on politics, pop culture, and black gay life, that is broadcast on WFPL) is so important,” says Cathey. “There is not always a voice of color when it comes to dealing with LGBTQ issues.”

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: Studied theatre at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois
Website:

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"Lakeishia” by Ashley Cathey, Acrylic and graphite on up-cycled plywood panel, 36x40in, $750

Illustration for the cover of LEO Weekly by Ashley Cathey, February 2016

"Nina Effect" by Ashley Cathey

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

Vignette: Lindsey Dezman

"Grenadier 5" by Lindsey Dezman, Ceramic, 16x16in, 2017

Artists are known for repurposing materials, but Lindsey Dezman’s most recent approach is a little more unusual. She captures the detritus from a communal studio sink trap, a plumbing fixture that collects discarded clay and glaze particles that would otherwise clog sewer lines. Although a new technique for her studio practice, it is consistent with the anthropological thread that seems to run through Dezman’s career.

“I explore materials and objects as a means to understand rhythms of time. As we age, so do the things around us; the steps upon our front door creak and slump more with every season, while a fossilized, thousand years old dinosaur bone is a test of time. My work is inspired from these rhythms and pulses of life. The results are simple, abstracted forms through which material explorations take place. I specifically choose to highlight the inherent life spans and the nuances within each of the materials that I use.”

“As my methods of making vary, my focus is always upon utilizing clay in alternative ways. "Grenadier" is a collection of wall works that highlight a continued self-interest in material research, recording, and beauty in the discarded. The sludge is ever changing from red, white, beige to blue depending upon the materials used by myself, and others in the studio. I collect this accumulated sludge of clay and glaze and build the work using the Japanese process of Nerikomi. It incorporates a layering and stacking technique that, once cut into sections, reveals a decorative pattern. The wall pieces illustrate the transitional shifts between material usage over time while the sculptural works are core samples. By harvesting materials from the sink trap, the results are spontaneous and the pattern is unpredictable. The work becomes indicative of the materials washed away and becomes a record mapping the activities within a communal studio.”

Even though Dezman’s past work does include examples of what could described as more conventional forms and vessels, she seems far more conceptual than a potter. Her perspective feels fluid, shifting between an absorption in the craft and an objective point-of-view of her position in the world as both an artist and a human being.

"Grenadier 7" by Lindsey Dezman, Ceramic, 16x16in, 2017

Dezman splits her time between New Albany, IN and Detroit, MI. Earlier this year she was featured in Small Favors: Think Inside the Box, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA, and from July 26 through August 22 you can find her work in Small Works 2018 at the Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Her work is part of permanent collections including Cranbrook Art Museum and Icheon World Ceramic Center. Dezman is currently the Resident Artist at Indiana University Southeast in Southern Indiana.  

Hometown: New Albany, Indiana
Education: Master of Fine Arts, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, 2014; Post Baccalaureate, Oregon College of Art & Craft, Portland, OR, 2012; Bachelor of Fine Arts, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 2011
Website: www.lindseydezman.com
Instagram: lindseydezman

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An exhibition at ROYGBIV Gallery in Columbus, OH, July 2017  Installation View

"Grenadier 8" by Lindsey Dezman, Ceramic, 16x16in, 2017

"Miniature.25" by Lindsey Dezman, Ceramic, 3.5x1.5x22in, 2018

"Grenadier 4" by Lindsey Dezman, Ceramic, 16x16in, 2017

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

Vignette: Clare Hirn

"Guest View Epic" by Clare Hirn, 2018

Although Clare Hirn has been a working artist pretty much her entire life, she had never been to an artist’s retreat or had a residency experience. “Raising two kids was one of the reasons,” she explains, “it always seemed so difficult to get away.”

But she has just returned from a month spent at Rancho Linda Vista near Oracle, Arizona. The retreat was established 50 years ago by artists who were teaching at the University of Arizona and Hirn found it to be a very welcoming artist community. 

Hirn's studio at Rancho Lindo Vista

Hirn was given a guest cabin with studio space in which to live and work, and describes the experience as, “so rejuvenating! It was just what I needed!”

“My stay was a mini-sabbatical that allowed me to concentrate on painting and drawing for 30 days.  Because I was “dropped” into an amazing landscape so new to me, and literally right outside my kitchen window, I allowed myself to just focus on that as subject matter.  I took paper and a few other painting supports that fit in my borrowed luggage, and ample drawing and painting supplies. I bought canvas and some other materials in Tucson, about an hour south of Oracle.”  

Hirn has a strong reputation as a landscape artist in the Ohio River Valley, and the change in terrain provided opportunity for discovery: “The distances can be deceptive. The landscape would dip and roll more than you realize. After I did a drawing, I would go walking into what I had just drawn, only to find that there were steep inclines. The ground would open up a whole other space.”

She found unexpected inspiration in in the chain fruit cholla, which grows in abundance in the area. It appears in the drawings that we see here, but it also became a part of the work itself when Hirn filtered the desert soil through the physical openings of the porous bark onto paper coated with medium. The result was "Cholla Triptych".

"Oracle Egg" by Clare Hirn, 2018

Even though the hand of an artist is evident in the marks of the drawings and paintings, Hirn’s proportion and sense of light are still realistic enough to suggest photography, but no filter would capture the same understanding of how color defines space that we detect in this work. 

Clare Hirn received a significant scholarship to attend the New York Academy of Art – Graduate School of Figurative Art, located in Manhattan. The curriculum continues to focus on strong foundational skills for working “realistically” from life and the figure.

After graduating with her masters in painting and drawing in 1990, Hirn worked for a mural design firm in NYC, learning the techniques of working large scale. Upon returning to her hometown of Louisville, KY she pursued both mural work and her personal painting, participating and receiving awards in many regional shows. Hirn’s fine art murals and paintings grace many homes, businesses, and public spaces and have appeared in numerous publications.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BA (Individualized Major Program), Indiana University in Bloomington; MFA in painting and drawing, New York Academy of Art - Graduate School of Figurative Art.
Website: http://www.clarehirnstudio.com

 

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Clare Hirn at Rancho Linda Vista.

"Live Oak Wash" by Clare Hirn, 2018

"Oracle Postcard" by Clare Hirn, 2018

"Cholla Triptych" by Clare Hirn, 2018

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

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Vignette: Zed Saeed

"Loreen Suleiman (Kurdistan") by Zed Saeed, Settled in Louisville by Catholic Charities-Migration and Refugee Services, Gelatin Silver Print, 20x24in, NFS

Some of the faces look like they could be from Louisville. Maybe the man grew up in the Russell neighborhood instead of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Other faces are wrapped in a hajib or other fabric head covering, so that we immediately assume that they have come here from another part of the world, even though we know America has a large Muslim population. Yet others show something about the features, or the set of the eyes, or maybe an expression of uncertain humility that feels unfamiliar to anyone born in the U.S.

Zed Saeed is an art and documentary photographer currently working with recent refugees and immigrants that have settled in Kentucky. In Louisville, he connects with these individuals mostly through the Catholic Charities-Migration and Refugee Services. Saeed believes strongly in the power of photography to create connections and to alter perceptions about people, places and things.

There is incongruity in the idea that a recent arrival from Somalia wears a Twilight: New Moon hoodie, and mistrust in the face of one girl, a distinct wariness that is missing in her sister, whose open and peaceful countenance peers out from with a hajib. Their family has fled the Syrian Civil War, traveling halfway across the globe, to a place entirely foreign to them, not by choice, but simply to survive – to live.  

"The Suleman Family" by Zed Saeed, Settled in Louisville by Catholic Charities-Migration and Refugee Services, Gelatin Silver Print, NFS

Saeed captures these people with stark simplicity that refuses to overlay any agenda except to witness them in all of their humanity. Most Americans cannot easily fathom the danger of their treacherous journey, or the heartbreak of having your community devastated by the horrific violence of modern-day warfare. If we ask ourselves whether or not we could find the courage, how would we answer - yes or no?. Perhaps this family never imagined that they could either, until there was no other choice. Can we accept such perseverance as anything less than heroic?

Saeed is currently featured in Looking Up: Heroes For Today – An LVA Exhibit at Metro Hall, which is on exhibit through January 11, 2019 at Louisville’s Metro Hall, 511 West Jefferson Street.

His photographs have been featured in Louisville magazine and shown at local galleries. Saeed is a grant recipient for his photographic work from the Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project and the Kentucky Arts Council. Saeed has also taught photography for many years around the country. He is currently a student at the Hite Art Institute at University of Louisville in the Masters of Fine Art program.

Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Education: BFA in Film Studies from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; In his second year (of 3) at U of L's Masters of Fine Art program at the Hite Art Institute.
Website: www.zedsaeedphoto.com

"Parveen Suleiman (Kurdistan") by Zed Saeed, Settled in Louisville by Catholic Charities-Migration and Refugee Services, Gelatin Silver Print, 20x24in, NFS

"Montgomery Street School (Trophy Room)" by Zed Saeed, (Light painting photography), Photo: 20”x30”. Frame: 32”x42”. Metallic Print, $750

"Montgomery Street School (Men's Room)" by Zed Saeed, (Light painting photography), Photo: 20”x30”. Frame: 32”x42”. Metallic Print, $750

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

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Vignette: Brianna Harlan

“I am not what you think I am. You are what you think I am.”
-Unknown

"The Divided States of Americans (1)" by Brianna Harlan, Graphic Art, 16x20in, 5 Posters

We speak of our common humanity; that what connects us as Americans is greater than what separates us. Important words that few would argue, yet what is the action plan for rediscovering that commonality? In her Artist’s Statement for The Divided States of Americans, Louisville artist Brianna Harlan offers an action plan for the crucial first steps:
 
“The current, divisive political climate is causing increased self-awareness, especially among millennials who have been called a generation for activism, and marginalized groups. As false stereotypes are used to fulfill harmful political agenda, everyone’s realities are influenced. We are encouraged to draw lines, determine the worth of humanity, and demonize differences. The Divided States of Americans attempts in red, white, and blue—mirroring propaganda posters—to advocate for a different message: get a little closer to one another to see the greatness of diverse identity.”  

The Divided States of Americans are an example of social practice art, a series of five posters in red, white, and blue colors, with images that are autobiographical but also reflections for the viewer to witness their own role in unifying the communities in which they live; both a challenge and an invitation. Each Poster has "They Say" statements on the left vs "I am" Statements on the right. All five are currently featured in Looking Up: Heroes For Today – An LVA Exhibit at Metro Hall, which is on exhibit through January 11, 2019 at Louisville’s Metro Hall, 511 West Jefferson Street.

Harlan describes herself as, “a mixed media artist that creates Radically Vulnerable art to invite transformative dialogue. Themes of her work include identity, social/cultural dynamics, intimacy, oppression, and self-suppression. Brianna works primarily with participants, inviting them to share and unpack sensitive topics through questions and actions. The discoveries that come from these mindful investigations shape the concept and inform the work's medium. She creates with people, not just about them, and views the process and resulting work as a tool for a moving experience and constructive conversation.

Photo: Festival of Faiths

She was a member of the first group of Hadley Creatives, a 6-month learning and engagement experience for local artists who are at a pivotal point in their careers developed by the Community Foundation of Louisville in partnership with Creative Capital, a New York-based nonprofit that supports innovative and adventurous artists across the country. An exhibit showcasing the work from this group opens June 1 at the Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft in Louisville.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: BA Studio Art, Hanover College, Hanover, IN
Website: briannaharlan.com

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"Oasis" by Brianna Harlan, Mixed Media Interactive Installation, 27x19x8ft, KY Center for the Arts,  April 2018

"The Divided States of Americans (2)" by Brianna Harlan, Graphic Art, 16x20in, 5 Posters

"inside Out" by Brianna Harlan, Printmaking: Relief and Mono-type, Clear Wax, 12x15in

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved

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