Carnagie Center for Art and History

Curatorial, Public Radio

Artebella On The Radio: June 25, 2020

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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.

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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.

Painting

Vignette: Sandra Charles

“Living Monument, Angela Hollingsworth” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 48x60in, 2019, $4750

“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

“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. 

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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


”Refections of Us” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 48x60in, 2018, $4750

“Pam” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 30x30in, 2018, $2750

“Pam” by Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 30x30in, 2018, $2750

“Restrained Dreads” by Sandra Charles, Oil on Canvas, 48x60in, 2015, $2750

“Restrained Dreads” by Sandra Charles, Oil on Canvas, 48x60in, 2015, $2750

“Fourth of July” Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 36x48in, 2016, $3750

“Fourth of July” Sandra Charles, Oil on canvas, 36x48in, 2016, $3750

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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