Artists Talk with LVA: March 21. 2024

Valtcho Tonov is a mostly self-taught artist who was born in Bulgaria. He became seriously interested in art at the age of sixteen when his family relocated to Plovdiv.

After moving to the United States in 2001, he soon settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Valtcho has continued his studies under the tutelage of renowned artists such as John Michael Carter, Phil Starke and others. He is part of an ongoing uninstructed figurative drawing/painting workshop at Mellwood Art Center in Louisville.

A passionate Plein Air painter, he can be seen painting around Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, and Bulgaria. He is a member of the Plein Air Painters of KY. As a full time painter his repertoire includes landscapes, still life, abstract ,sporting and  figurative. He draws inspiration from The Russian School - Repin, Serov, Fechin, etc. , and the American realist painters Sargent, Schmid, Hassam, and many others.  

Artists Talk with LVA: March 14. 2024

Sheila Fox is a mixed-media artist who resides in Louisville, KY. She has been drawing for well over twenty years but has been painting since 2016. She signs her works under the artist name GodivaGoddess. Her motivation is rooted simply in being a Black Woman in America. She focused most of her life attending to work and supporting her family but has always known that she was an artist. She specializes in capturing the timeless essence of black women; and tackles the beauty within history, race, power, and repression. 

On March 21 Sheila will be recognized as the Emerging Artist at the 2024 LVA Honors, a fundraiser for Louisville Visual Art. Find out more about the event and how to purchase tickets here: louisvillevisualart.org/lva-honors

Artists Talk with LVA: March 7. 2024

Amanda Thompson has been a Visual Art teacher at Western Middle School for the Arts since 2010. She joined LVA’s Children’s Fine Art Classes the same year. She was recently awarded the Baird Excellence Award Outstanding Teacher for Middle School 2023. She served as a Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence Teacher Fellow in 2022 and Classroom Teachers Enacting Positive Solutions fellow in 2020. In collaboration with LVA and PNC Broadway, her classes have participated in 3 separate art installations at Kentucky Center for the Arts for Blue Man Group, Little Mermaid, and Anastasia, the Musical. 

Artists Talk with LVA: February 29, 2024

The 2024 LVA Honors takes place on March 21, 2024 at the LVA Building. This week is the 1st of 3 conversations with Honors recipients, C.J. Pressma (Legacy Award), Jon Cherry (Community Impact), Amanda Thompson (Teaching), & Sheila fox (Emerging Artist). You may purchase tickets to this fundraiser HERE.

In 1970 C.J. Pressma founded the Center for Photographic Studies – an alternative school of creative photography. The Center provided a learning experience for those seeking to explore photography as creative expression. During its eight- year existence the center attracted students from over 35 states and foreign countries to its full-time resident program and provided part-time instruction and darkroom access for hundreds of students in the Louisville metropolitan area. Its two galleries provided monthly photographic exhibits featuring the works of local, regional, and internationally acclaimed photographic artists including Ansel Adams and Minor White. In 1978 he was awarded a National Endowment Fellowship in Photography.

In 1979 Pressma embarked on a career as a multimedia producer and marketing communications specialist. In 1984, his seven part series Witness to the Holocaust, was released in the U.S. and Canada where it remains in distribution today. One of the first productions to use survivor interviews as the exclusive content to tell the story of the Holocaust, Witness to the Holocaust has received numerous national awards

Jon Cherry is a photojournalist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Jon works  as a stringer with Getty Images, Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg News, and The New York Times and has been published independently by The New York Times, Sierra, TIME Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, New York Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and others. Jon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography as a part of the Getty Images team for “comprehensive and consistently riveting photos of the attack on the U.S. Capitol” with Win McNamee, Spencer Platt, Drew Angerer, and Sam Corum.

Artists Talk with LVA: February 22, 2024

Donna R. Charging, Suyun Son, & Chloe Cheng are all MFA candidates at the University of Louisville's Hite Institute and they joined us in the WXOX studio this week. Tune into Artists Talk with LVA every Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 WXOX-FM or stream on Artxfm.com

Donna, Suyun, & Chloe all have a thesis exhibition scheduled at the MFA building in the Portland neighborhood.

Donna’s exhibit, That Limbless Sign, is now open and closes on February 23.

Suyun Son’s exhibit, Authentic Fake, runs from March 5 through April 1, with a reception on Friday, March 8 from 5-7 pm.

Chloe Cheng’s exhibit, Alabaster Glory, runs from April 12 through May 12 with a reception on Friday, April 12 from 6-8 pm.