Desmone Stepp is an artist and the Outreach Coordinator for Louisville Visual Art. She joins us to talk about her work and the new initiatives she is developing at LVA. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear artists talk about their work.
Desmone Stepp is the new Outreach Coordinator for Louisville Visual Arts. She is a recent graduate from the University of Louisville, earning her Bachelor's Degree in Art with a minor in Psychology. Her artwork consists of oil paintings and charcoal drawings that express the beauty of Black women and Mother Nature. Desmone has a background in bringing stress resilience and coping skills to her community in the form of mindfulness and meditation, working 2-years as a Health Advocate Leader for UofL’s Health Promotion Department. In this space, she learned to use art as a means for creating loving and rejuvenating atmospheres for others, as well as herself. As a Health Advocate Leader, Desmone also worked in outreach, organizing and facilitating workshops that connected the campus community. She has also worked as an artist and volunteer with the Healing Walls Project, an organization of BIPOC artists who travel across the United States promoting healing and justice, for those who have been marginalized and oppressed, through the use of public art.
“Living Monument, Angela Hollingsworth” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 48x60in, 2019, $4750
What makes a person royalty? Perhaps it is when they are seen in a regal aspect. Angela Hollingsworth would likely reject such a lofty position, yet Sandra Charles’ portrait of her for the Imagined Monuments exhibit places her in the same attitude that the artist has previously assigned to her series of African Queens. Hollingsworth’s humility is not absent, but it is clothed in rich fabrics and colors that connote a woman in a position of power and respect honestly earned achieved through accomplishment. Imagined Monuments, a Louisville Visual Art exhibit for Louisville’s Metro Hall, runs through July 12, 2019
“My work celebrates the self-esteem of African American women through interpretative portraiture,” Charles explains in her artist’s statement. “Each painting focuses on the expressions that represent our history and the expectations of the future. I look behind the facade of social perceptions that weighs down each of us. My work attempts to capture the removal of this hegemonic veil that covers the struggle between self and the perceived social order. It acknowledges this internal struggle as it fades away from the stereotypical norm towards a truer self. Moving away from traditional portraits, my body of work mixes this history and self together with color and stances that project an attitude of defiance. The facial expression of each woman contains the history of her progress and is a personal statement that captures the confidence of self.”
“Cynthia as Queen of Ethopia” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 48x60in 2016, NFS
Charles will be featured with two other notable African American women artists in The Art of Elmer Lucille Allen, Sandra Charles and Barbara Tyson Mosley, which will be on display at The Carnegie Art Center For Art and History in New Albany Indiana February 22 through April 20, 2019. It will showcase Charles’ vision of contemporary women who are African Queens walking amongst us, women changing the world through the hard work of social activism and public service. Their leadership is built brick-by-brick, step-by-step, against the fusillade of slings and arrows that are the daily experience in a country divided against itself.
Charles came to her painting career later in life, but since earning her BFA in 2015, she has rapidly gained a high profile in the Louisville art community, selected to be a member of the first cohort of Hadley Creatives (Community Foundation of Louisville) in 2017, granted a solo exhibit at Wayside Expressions Gallery n 2017, at Art Sanctuary for the Kentucky Foundation Of Women’s Summer Residency Exhibit in 2018, and having two paintings chosen for permanent installation in the newly renovated Kentucky International Convention Center.
Other recognition:
2017 Mellon-Oberst Family Award, 23rd Annual African American Exhibition, Louisville, KY 2016 Kentucky Foundation of Women Summer Residency Grant, Louisville, KY
Hometown: Hazard, Kentucky Education: BFA, Painting, University of Louisville Website: www.scharlesart.com Instagram: sandraspaintings
Scroll down for more images
”Refections of Us” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 48x60in, 2018, $4750
“Pam” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 30x30in, 2018, $2750
“Restrained Dreads” by Sandra Charles, Oil on Canvas, 48x60in, 2015, $2750
“Fourth of July” Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 36x48in, 2016, $3750
