William Mack III & Louis Robert Thompson came to talk The Griot Project and Black theatre in Louisville this week. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM. or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10:00 am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists on LVA's Artebella On The Radio.

William Nack III is a theatre educator and director and the co-founder of The Griot Project. he is also Church Planter/Pastor at Grace Community Covenant Church.

Louis Robert Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He is an actor, singer, and dancer best known for his role as the Veterinarian in Sundance Film Festival breakout The Art of Self Defense. He is also a fixture in the Louisville theater community starring in roles such as Coach in Ghost, John Henry in American Tales, and Xerxes in Esther The Musical.

Curatorial, Public Radio

Artebella On The Radio: June 25, 2020

Keith Waits · June 25, 2020

Public art and public spaces are an important part of the changes happening in our world right now, and Curator Eileen Yanoviak and Artist Brianna Harlan will be talking about these issues this week with Keith Waits. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear artists talk about their work.

Dr. Eileen Yanoviak has sixteen years of museum experience in development, marketing, curatorial, education, and guest relations. She has worked at the Speed Art Museum and Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (also known as KMAC Museum), both in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. She has had a parallel career in higher education as a teacher and administrator for more than a decade at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Louisville, among others. She received her doctorate in Art History from the University of Louisville in 2017. Her area of expertise is nineteenth-century American landscape painting, and she is particularly interested in environmental history, American studies, and museum studies. She has presented and published her research nation-wide and is a regular contributor to Burnaway: The Voice of Art in the South.

Brianna Harlan is a multidisciplinary artist and organizer. She works conceptually in multiform, socially engaged art. Her work is driven by an obsession with interpersonal culture and how that influences quality of life, health, and habits. Brianna is a Hadley Creative and Kentucky Foundation for Women Fire Starter awardee. Her most recent residencies were at Oxbow School of Art and Artists’ Residency, Materia Abierta in Mexico City, and Makers Circle in North Carolina. She also leads community experiences and presentations, has been a speaker for organizations like For Freedoms, 21C Museum Hotels, and the KY ACLU. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Art and Social Action at Queens College, CUNY.

Drawing

Feature: 2020 Academy at LVA Senior Recognition

Keith Waits · June 21, 2020

Brendan Taylor - Vision Award - $500 cash scholarship
Elizabeth Hill - Portfolio Award - $75 Preston’s gift card
Megan Smith - Community Award - $50 Preston’s gift card
Claire Vicars - Inspiration Award - $25 Preston’s gift card

The journey from 14 to 18 years of age is a time of discovery and finding one’s self; identity forms but doesn’t ever finish. For artists, it is when the simple pleasure of drawing becomes a vital and intentional means of expression. A newly found focus on medium and technique points to the next level of growth and maturity.

As the greatly disrupted schoolyear came to a close, Louisville Visual Art is pleased to have finished out Academy classes online and is proud to recognize the accomplishments of four Academy Seniors.

Megan Smith graduated from DuPont Manual High School

Because of that interest in identity, self-portraits are common. Megan Smith’s “To The Center” highlights the Pop Art colors of a hard candy sucker in contact with analogously colored lips by allowing the face to remain in black and white. The image balances illusion and reality, surrealism and naturalism, and is striking, simple, declarative, and fun.

Megan will be studying at IUS this fall, majoring in Psychology.

Elizabeth Hill graduated from Corydon Central High School

Elizabeth Hill explores the fundamental relationship of structure in nature and how humankind has followed it in design and architecture. Every child anthropomorphizes their toys, seeing a giraffe in every crane, and an elephant or rhinoceros in every earthmover, because their perception remains intuitive. If the observation that adult artists are often trying to reconnect with the innocent perspective of childhood, The playful hybrids seen here suggest that Elizabeth hasn’t yet lost that vital connection, combining a solid design foundation with a fine conceptual wit.

Elizabeth will be a student at the Kentucky College of Art + Design.

Claire Vicars graduated from DuPont Manual

Design is prominent in Vicars’ work, most notably a poster for a theatrical production of Antigone that might be the envy of a professional. The imagery is highly evocative of Greek tragedy overlaid with romantic textures, and the visual detail of an errant black line extending up from the title is inspired in how it invited the viewer to complete the allusion to the fiery sun as a balloon, a motif that reflects the conflict between earthly and divine power in the play.

Claire will enter the Hite Art Institute BFA program at the University of Louisville.

Brendan Taylor graduated from Eastern High School

Brendan offers evidence of one of the most crucial qualities for the young artist: observation. The detail of texture and color overlays a developing exploration of space and dimension. The connection between seeing and drawing can move to a profound level once the artist liberates themselves from a fixation on mark-making; the ability to get lost in the visceral reality of even a seemingly mundane subject such as a ceramic mug and some fruit. The relationships of the objects include the harsh contrast of very green bananas against the warm wood grain of the table and the analogous color of the mug and the table. The viewer can identify with Taylor’s absorption in the almost forensic study of all of these elements.

Brendan has applied and was accepted into the University of Louisville Hite Art Institute as a Studio Art Major.

Brendan Taylor, “Kitchen Table”, acrylic

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.

Public Radio

Artebella On The Radio: June 18, 2020

Keith Waits · June 18, 2020

Shae Goodlett, Teri Dryden, & John Brooks are 3 of the Featured Artists for the June 25 Art[squared] Online Auction Fundraiser and they will be joining us this Thursday morning for LVA's Artebella On The Radio. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com every Thursday to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.

art[squared] Auction

Why you want to be there…The art[squared] Auction will be open to the public. Some of the most sought-after artists in Louisville have work available at art[squared]! In addition, there will be 6 featured artists this year who have each created a triptych (3 canvases) for the event! Featured Artists include: Teri Dryden, Ashley Cathey, Lori Larusso, Jaylin Stewart, Chip Calloway and Shae Goodlet.

Imagine the powerful sight of 100+ works of art displayed in support of scholarships for 1000+ young artists! Proceeds benefit all of LVA’s vital programming: from Children's Fine Art Classes and Open Doors outreach for at-risk youth; to the Mural Art Program and year-round exhibitions at Metro Hall & AC Hotel.

Shae Goodlett is an artist and illustrator and graduate of Bellarmine University. He just completed the MFA program at the University of Louisville’s Hite Institute for Art.

Teri Dryden is a member of the Collage Artists of America, National Collage Society, and Women Painters West. Her work is included in many private and public collections and has been exhibited in numerous solo, group and juried exhibitions across the country.

Visual artist and poet John Brooks explores themes of identity, memory, death, place, and the transformative power and emotional resonance of particular experiences and what Max Beckmann described as “the deepest feeling about the mystery of being. He manages Quappi Projects in Louisville.

Public Radio

Artebella On The Radio: June 11, 2020

Keith Waits · June 12, 2020

Lori Larusso is the recipient of the 2020 Bill Fischer Award for Visual Artists, and she will be our guest this week on LVA's Artebella On The Radio. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.

Larusso earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and a BFA from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). She has consistently exhibited work in solo and group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, and has been awarded, numerous residency fellowships. She is a recipient of the Kentucky Arts Council’s Al Smith Fellowship, the Great Meadows Foundation Professional Development Grant, as well as numerous grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Lori is the 2019 Kentucky South Arts Fellow and received the 2020 Fischer Prize for Visual Artists. She currently lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, and her work is represented by Skidmore Contemporary in Santa Monica, California, and Mulberry & Lime in Lexington, Kentucky.

Artebella On The Radio: July 2, 2020