“Honeycomb Bee” by Jesi Evans, Mixed media embroidery, 8x8in, 2018, $500

Jesi Evans Murphy is a fiber artist who uses, “… what is traditionally viewed as craft media to create conceptual fine art.” Her work is a compelling match up of contemporary artistic sensibility with craft tradition.

“A very important part of my process is hand making each piece. I come from a background where I often participated in craft projects with my mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Creating art within the medium of craft allows me to fulfill my desire for creative expression while also bringing up my most cherished childhood memories. My art is an extension of my personal experience as well as concepts and opinions about the world outside my immediate scope. My fear, anxiety, joy, and hope are channeled into each piece.”

“Green Bee Revisited” by Jesi Evans, Mixed media embroidery, 8x8in, 2018, $500

“My conceptual work draws heavily from issues I find relevant to my life as well as the emotions I experience while dealing with those issues. Current projects include a body of work based on environmental concerns and a body of work based on chronic illness. Both bodies of work call forth my anxiety as well as my hope. The craft medium is warm, inviting, and accessible to the viewer. This accessibility draws the viewer in and invites them to experience the emotions the conceptual work brings forth.”

When Murphy speaks of working on creative projects with previous generations of women in her family, she touches upon the fact that American textile art has lived mostly as a matriarchal, generational, connection surreptitiously building a feminist thread into the culture.

Murphy will be showing her body of work APIS this December at Delinquent Gallery in Bloomington, Indiana.

Recent exhibits:

2018

Be Kind, Rewind a Cult Film Group Show, Delinquent Gallery, Bloomington, IN
1-Up: Extra Life a Video Game Group Show, Delinquent Gallery, Bloomington, IN
KaiJuly a Kaiju/Giant Monster Group Show, Delinquent Gallery, Bloomington, IN
2015

Open Studio Weekend – Hot Garbage Collective, LVA Building, Louisville, KY
Open Studio Weekend Exhibition, Cressman Center, Louisville, KY
Fantastic Fibers 2015, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY
Art[Squared], PUBLIC, Louisville, KY

Hometown: Bardstown, Kentucky
Education: Certificate, Front End Web Design, CodeLouisville, Louisville, KY, 2015;
BA, Studio Art (Fiber Emphasis), Berea College, Berea, KY, 2007
Website: https://cargocollective.com/jesievansart
Instagram: @jesievans
Tumbler: jesievans

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“Heart with Three Bees” by Jesi Evans, Mixed media embroidery, 8x8in, 2016, $500

“Missing Bee” by Jesi Evans, Mixed media embroidery, 8x8in, 2018, $1000

“Skull with Nine Bees” by Jesi Evans, Mixed media embroidery, 8x8in, 2015, $500

Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

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Mixed Media

Vignette: Sid Webb

Guest User · September 28, 2018

“Ohio River” by Sid Webb, Print, mixed media, 12x18in, 2018, $125

Sid Webb is an artist who moves in many directions. He pioneered the use of digital design and graphics with Kentucky Educational Television, is an accomplished photographer, and knows his way around a paintbrush.

Much of his photography is fairly straightforward and observational, but this image of Porta, Portugal bridges the mediums with the precision of a photograph joined with the color and surface textures of a painting.

“Easy Chairs” by Sid Webb, Print, mixed media, 12x18in, 2018, $125

In the two oil paintings shown, Webb injects fresh perspective into commonplace settings along the Ohio River by emphasizing their intimacy. Instead of a grand view of the landscape, the point-of-view is from the ground, and there is a distinct sense of people in residence along the river – those two Adirondack chairs indicate privileged moments shared over a lifetime. It feels like a community separate from the defining civic boundaries of city and county. The geography, the elements, and the flow of the water shape life here.

Webb’s mark making is disciplined yet spontaneous. The brushwork communicates the action of painting: the loose yet intentional movement of the brush and the connection between what the eye observes and what the hand will render. The light is subdued, diffuse, an overcast day in the dog days of summer before the leaves begin to turn.

On September 29, Webb will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.

Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky
Education: Majored in journalism and political science, University of Kentucky; Atlanta School of Art (High Museum)
Website: http://www.sidwebb.com/

“Porta, Portugal” by Sid Webb, Photograph, 12x18in, 2018, $125

“Bridges” by Sid Webb, Photograph, 12x18in, 2018, $125

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Painting

Vignette: Corie Neumayer

Guest User · September 27, 2018

“August at the River” by Corie Neumayer, Acrylic, Latex on canvas, 16x20in, $275

Corie Neumayer is an accomplished woman, but she has a soft-spoken and unassuming demeanor that doesn’t automatically claim much for herself. It is not an unusual quality to find in a visual artist, and even more common for women creatives. That painters tend to be introverts is a cliché, certainly, but the truth that is the foundation for that stereotype is that artists look inward and outward on different terms than others.

“Ripples Canvas” by Corie Neumayer, Torn fabric glued to canvas, then painted, 18x 24in, 2018, $400

Neumayer describes herself as a painter, “…who creates abstracted paintings of the landscape that focus on open spaces: desserts, mountains, lakes, small towns as well as my local countryside. My current work reflects the now fleeting beauty of our environment and the uneasiness caused by the changes in our climate.”

So while she looks outward for her subject, the inward perspective is expressed in the that balance of abstract and representational, a tension born of the artist’s forensic examination of the environment. Breaking everything down into geographic elements and using color and texture less to define space and form than to suggest those relationships. It underscores that there is often a thin line between descriptions and categories in art. Neumayer’s paintings are representational, and thus traditional, but abstract and conceptual, intellectual and emotional.

“I work mainly in acrylic and latex because it is so versatile. It dries quickly so the surprises of layering paint, or paper, cloth or almost anything else can be experienced almost immediately, and it lends itself to endless experimentation.”

In that statement the artist confirms the itch for discovery, but there is also a great pleasure in the tactile surface quality that documents the painter’s hand. The impasto crafted from brush, knife, and perhaps other tools, give a visceral kick to the viewer – paint is always seductive, has recently given way to a collage-like layering of canvas material..

On September 29, Neumayer will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: MA in Teaching, University of Louisville; BA, Georgetown College (Georgetown Kentucky); also attended Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, Georgia), California State University-Long Beach, and St. Cloud College (St. Cloud, Minnesota)
Gallery Representative: Pyro Gallery
Website: www.corieneumayerpaintings.com

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“Hot September” by Corie Neumayer, Acrylic, latex on canvas, 20x24in, 2018, $450.

“Tree Line” by Corie Neumayer, Paper, acrylic, latex paint on canvas, 18x24in, 2018, $400

“River Snow Latex”, Acrylic on canvas, Paint applied with rollers and brushes 24x30in, 2018, $600

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Painting

Vignette: Ewa Perz

Guest User · September 25, 2018

“Blue River” by Ewa Perz, Oil on canvas, 48x36in, 2018, $2900

Ewa Perz is from Gdansk, Poland, and her memories of her hometown and the surrounding landscape reaffirm some of the Cold War cliché. In an April 2018 interview with LVA’s Artebella On The Radio, she described growing up in Poland: “…(it) is very gray. There are not as many colors as you would think in the western world. And when I first moved (1989) it was to Mexico, and the primary colors were everywhere, I was surrounded by color.”

The sudden immersion into such a contrasting culture affected Perz deeply, and it would ignite a passion for painting, but not until some 15 years later, when she had relocated to Louisville, Kentucky and became involved with Susan Howe’s Mudpies Studio on the far-east side of the city. Her first paintings resurrected the love of primary color, but in the years since, she has developed a much more sophisticated palette, and although she still creates representational images, a good deal of her most recent work is a subtle exploration of the intermingling properties of light and space. Water surfaces fascinate her, the abstract, mercurial surfaces of lakes and streams revealed in diffuse sunlight.

“Reflection” by Ewa Perz, Oil on canvas, 48x24in, 2018, $2200

“Color is very important to me,” explains Perz. “I paint a variety of subjects, but they are not as important to me as color. To me, color is what bares the essence of an object, and that is what I seek to portray.”

Educated as a scientist, Perz worked as a chemist, and one can only surmise how much theory lies behind her approach to painting. Does her scientifically trained mind deconstruct the chemical relationship in medium? Does she study the colors according to formula? The way Perz talks about her process, the answer seems to be that the analytical side of her brain has moved aside to make way for the artist’s intuitive journey of discovery. “Simplicity is definitely the direction in which I want to continue.”

On September 29, Perz will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.

Perz has also studied with contemporary masters Felo Garcia, David Laffel, Milt Kobayashi. Her paintings are currently on display in Revelry Gallery Boutique, European Splendor and Galerie Municipale (France). Her paintings have been featured in galleries in Miami, as well as Mexico, and France.

Currently, Perz is exhibiting The Kentucky I Love in the NULU AC Hotel, Louisville, KY, through November 2018.

Recent Exhibitions:

April 2018 - Artist Showcase in Churchill Downs
April 2018 - Feature Artist in LVA SquareArt
November 2017 - “Water Strokes”- solo show at Reverie Gallery Louisville Ky
September 2017 - Ewa Perz at Butchertown Social solo show
December 2016 - Spectrum - group show at Art Basel Miami
October 2016 - First Place in “Metamorphosis” art completion by LVA
October 2016 - Mural for Holiday Manor Kroger
September 2015 – “Lush” solo show Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington Ky
September 2014-2016 – Revelry Gallery; Louisville, KY
December 2014 - Global Ties Miami Exhibition; Art Basel week; Miami, FL
May 2013 – ‘Dons d’Artistes’ exhibition; Antibes, France
2011-2012 – Un Oeil Ouvert; Loubet, France
May 2011 – Galerie Municipale; Antibes, France
Summer 2011 – Artist residency; Antibes, France
December 2, 2010 – La Dolce Art Gallery; San Jose del Cabo, BCS, Mexico

Screen Shot 2018-08-21 at 11.20.52 AM.jpg

Hometown: Gdansk, Poland
Education: Masters in Plant Physiology
Website: http://www.ewaperzgallery.com
Gallery Representation: Revelry Gallery, (Louisville) Ann Tower Gallery, (Lexington), Gallery Municipale, (Antibes, France)

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“Women Head Idea” by Ewa Perz, study in oil, 2018, NFS

“Bergman-unfinished copy” by Ewa Perz, OIl on canvas, 2018

“Run” by Ewa Perz, Oil on canvas, 48x72in (triptych), 2018, $2200

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Fiber

Vignette: Stephanie Tanner

Guest User · September 20, 2018

"Up The River" by Stephanie Tanner, Mixed Media Fiber Art Metal, Wool, Driftwood, 12x60in, 2018, $600

Stephanie Tanner makes sculptures that scream out to be touched. The tactile quality of the wool she often uses is particularly alluring, but more importantly, the pieces communicate an emotional intensity that is utterly compelling.

"Holding Fast" by Stephanie Tanner, Concrete, Wool, Wood, 8x22x18in, 2018, $250

“I like to think of myself as a woven word artist,” explains Tanner, “a poet that wants to hold words in my hands and show how they appeared as I wrote them. I write passionately about love, loss, longing, and mental illness. My rendering of each poem uses discarded household objects, concrete sculpture and various types of fiber (wool, yarn, fabric etc.) to move the poem from paper into this dimension.”

The recognizable objects are filled with fabric situated in forms and patterns suggestive of the ordinary contents or attachments, but the softness of the materials, including the delicate interplay of pastel colors that suggest Baroque paintings, lends a dream-like quality to the sculptures. Tanner’s formal education may have not included an art degree, but her work is nonetheless filled with academic references from history, even while it expresses complex emotional states that reflect.

“I am stubbornly self-taught in that I learned my techniques through a great deal of curiosity and experimentation. There is never a sketch or a plan…just the thought ‘I wonder what would happen if I did… X?’ and then surrender myself fully until it tells me it is finished. My goal is to bridge the gap between poetry and visual art and create a fuller sensory experience.”

“I loved the people I worked for but found the 9-5 life unfulfilling. I quit in 2008 after the birth of my daughter and jumped head first into art, pursuing a career as a professional photographer. After 9 years of photographing weddings, babies, and families my heart once again felt restless and I felt a desire to further push my creative limits. I began exploring all kinds of artistic mediums but none of them felt right for me. I had always written poetry but in 2016 I began weaving as a way to battle my chronic depression and anxiety and it quickly moved from a hobby to a full-time passion. Recently I have been working on larger pieces that incorporate my poetry, weaving, and found objects.”

On September 29, Tanner will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.

Hometown: Grew up in Germany, Alabama, South Carolina, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. But for the last 15 years, I have called Louisville my home.
Education: Degree in Hospitality Management, MBA, Johnson and Wales University
Website: www.iamstephtanner.com
Instagram: iamstephtanner

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"Starships" by Stephanie Tanner, Wool, antique fish basket, 24x18in, 2018, $300

“Nowhere to Keep This” by Stephanie Tanner, Wool, vintage suitcase, 26x20in, 2018, $425