Artebella On The Radio: May 27

Jon Cherry is a happening photojournalist who has covered the 2020 Louisville Black Lives Matter protests and was in Washington on January 6. His work is currently on exhibit at the Portland Museum and as a part of the Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibition at The Speed and he is our guest this week Tune in to WXOX 97.1 or stream @ Artxfm.com Thursday at 10 am.

Exhibiting at The Portland Museum n conjunction with Voices and Votes, an exhibit from The Smithsonian. June 12.

Jon’s work is also included in Promise, Witness, Remembrance at The Speed through July 24

“I am dedicated to capturing moments that spark action without words and convey emotions that may be otherwise foreign to the viewer. This work requires an intensive approach to challenges.  ‘Never walk past a problem you can solve,’ was my father’s credo, and it is this stride that carries me through all my pursuits.” 

He works as a stringer with Getty Images and The New York Times and has been published independently by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and others.

Artebella On The Radio: May 20

Hite Institute just graduated some new MFA candidates and this week we talk with two of them, Karen Weeks & Megan Bickel. Tune in to WXOX 97.1, or stream on Artxfm.com Thursday at 10 am to her Keith Waits talk with artists.

Megan Bickel is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer who was a Community Educator at Art Academy of Cincinnati and who operates Houseguest, an independent artist-run project space located in Louisville. Her exhibit l is meditating on two words as they relate to one another in our current moment: illusion and allusion. Specifically, this manifests by inquiring as to how we consume visual data, the probability of factual 'truths,' and cultivating safe, imaginative spaces for the viewer to conceive of ethically superior realities.

Karen Weeks is also a multi-disciplinary artist who has worked with fiber and a lot with the letterpress print studio. Her exhibit, Love Labor: Literal Symbols and True Abstractions, is comprised of images sourced from common ephemera of the home meant to represent the everyday: notes, discarded letters, open envelopes, unfinished knitting, garments, drawings, math homework. The works in this show seek to reimage this detritus by (re)organizing it into constructed passages that bear witness to the commonalities to be found in homemaking and artmaking, aesthetics and the commonplace, economics, and whining. They are abstract representations of that which is contained within us, by way of what collects in our homes, representations of the aesthetics of and the profundities contained within the mundane.

Megan Bickel, Karen Weeks, Katherine Watts & Rachid Tagoulla

MFA Exhibition
May 7-July 9, 2021

Cressman Center for Visual Arts
100 E Main Street
Louisville, KY 40202

Artebella On The Radio: May 13

Shayne Hull is showing at 1512 Portland Avenue & Lori Larusso is at Quappi Projects, so I talked with them about the work now on public display. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM or stream on Artxfm.com Thursday at 10 am.

SHAYNE HULL is an award-winning Louisville-based artist. His paintings have been shown regionally, nationally, and internationally in over 175 exhibits, including 25 solo shows. His work can be found in the public collections of Brown-Forman, 21 C Museum, and the Kentucky Arts Council, as well as the private collections of Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown and the Rev. Al Shands.

Hull has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Maryland Institute, College of Art; a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Texas A&M University and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from the University of Louisville

For 20 years Lori Larusso’s art has graced local, national and international venues. Her consistently experimental and evolving work has earned her multiple awards from the Great Meadows Foundation, SouthArts, Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women. Additionally, Lori has been awarded numerous residency fellowships from institutions including Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Sam & Adele Golden Foundation, MacDowell, and chaNorth. She was the recipient of the 2020 Bill Fischer Award for the Visual Arts from the Community Foundation of Louisville and Louisville Visual Art. Her first solo show in Louisville “Rogue Intensities” is currently up at Quappi Projects through June 12.

Lori’s work is represented by Galleri Urbane in Dallas, Texas, and Mulberry & Lime and Eastin Creative in Lexington, Kentucky. She currently lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky.

Vignette: 2021 Academy Outstanding Seniors

“God is the Greatest”, Tarina Henry, duPont Manual

By Keith Waits

Entire contents are copyright © 2021 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

How we measure academic development has been a somewhat controversial topic for quite some time now, but when we step into the arts the range of progress can be especially difficult to determine unless you know the student. If we follow a rubric for skills in draughtsmanship or understanding of color it can seem a dry and impersonal method to summarize what is expected to be a highly personal means of expression. These students were recognized in an awards presentation at the Opening Reception for the 2021 Academy at LVA Exhibition:

Academy at LVA student Elaina Render, a senior at duPont Manual, has many still life studies in her portfolio that allow us to track her earnest growth, but it is in her “Poe” that we see the cumulative results. The B&W pen and ink drawing is almost perfectly composed, a cleanly executed graphic illustration that displays a sensibility following in the footsteps of the legendary Edward Gorey.

Elaina was accepted into a whole roster of top schools, and has decided to attend Georgia Institute of Technology.

“Poe”, Elaina Render, duPont Manual

North Oldham senior Malva Wieck’s pencil study of a wrapped peppermint shows an attention to detail and accomplished comprehension of dimension. The thought of spending a few hours looking intently at a piece of candy might sound like the epitome of boredom, but that patient observation is an instructor’s dream. 

In the fall Malva will attend the “school of my dreams”: Amherst College, where she has been awarded significant financial aid and intends to double-major in Environmental Science and Art History.

“Minty Fresh”, Malva Wieck, North Oldham HS

Raegan Coots spent five years in the LVA Children’s Fine Art Classes (CFAC) and four in the Academy, all while staying on the Honor Roll and being consistently recognized for outstanding achievement at Trinity High School. His “Clipper Ship” has the straightforward narrative thrust that places us in the pages of a book; the vessel moving off the edge of the page suggesting a continuing story.

Raegan has been accepted into Indiana University Southeast where he expects to major in Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design.

“Clipper Ship”, Raegan Coots, Trinity HS

In contrast to these first three young artists, Tarina Henry has come to the Academy at LVA in just her last semester before college, but she was clearly busy at the Visual Arts Magnet at duPont Manual and being a Governor’s Scholar. Her “God is the Greatest” is a stunning expression of islamic culture that shows off a very sophisticated use of color.

Tarina has committed to the University of Kentucky’s College of Design for Architecture. She has received a Diversity Scholarship and Provost Scholarship on top of KEES, Federal Pell Grant, and other financial support.

Since 1925, LVA visual art education programs have been not only training the next generations of artists but also building an arts rich education for future leaders in all walks of life. Congratulations to all Academy at LVA seniors!

The 2021 Academy of LVA Exhibition
May 7 - 20

Monday through Thursdays 1 - 4 pm

LVA Gallery
1538 Lytle Street
Louisville, KY 40203
(502) 584-8166

Scroll Down to view more images

“Watermelon Haze”, Tarina Henry, Academy at LVA and duPont Manual student

“Northern Lights”, Malva Wieck, Academy at LVA and North Oldham HS student

“Apple a Day”, Elaina Render, Academy at LVA and duPont Manual student

“Eagle”, Raegan Coots, Academy at LVA and Trinity HS student

Written by Keith Waits.
In addition to his work as Operations Director 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.

Artebella On The Radio: May 6

Bette Levy & Kathleen Loomis are exhibiting new work together in PYRO Gallery’s new exhibition, "Reconfiguration". They joined us to talk about it on WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artfm.com.

Bette Levy views the creation of her art as a continuum where every work is influenced and enhanced by previous artwork. With each successive piece of art, she is incorporating gained knowledge and capabilities. She also believes her understanding of her artwork only becomes clear after the work is completed. Levy has no pre-conceived interpretation or meaning of her work other than its form. And this often changes over time as a result of life experiences and perceptions.

Kathleen Loomis thinks of “reconfiguration” slightly differently than Bette does – for her, it’s the finding of old things and giving them new life in art. She is a world-class pack rat, acquiring stuff from the street when she walks, checking out other people’s junk on trash pickup day, accepting discards from friends, even tearing apart old books that she knows nobody will ever want to read. Loomis likes to reassemble these disparate things and see what happens when they get into small groups and start to talk to one another.

PYRO’s new exhibition, RECONFIGURATION, featuring work by Bette Levy and Kathleen Loomis, opens on May 2 and runs through May 30. The gallery is open Friday and Saturday, from 12 to 6 PM and Sunday from 1 PM to 4 PM, and by appointment.