Artists Talk with LVA: December 26, 2024

"New Beginnings" opens at Pyro Gallery on January 3 and will feature work by Janet Dake and Erica Chinise Wilcox, Janet joins us in the studio this week to talk about it. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Janet Dake is a figurative painter from Versailles, Kentucky, now based in Louisville. Her work is about people, both real and imagined. Dake’s paintings tell stories. Through intricate (and often made-up) backgrounds, Dake creates narratives that reflect contemporary social issues and cultural phenomena. In 2021 she completed an Artist Residency in Toronto, Canada, where she had her first solo show entitled Human Nature. In 2022, her work was selected for the Ferrara Showman Gallery for their annual No Dead Artists group show and the Post Roe Louisiana show at the Carrollton Gallery at Tulane University. Her work was recently displayed at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art for the annual Louisiana Contemporary showcase. Dake is currently a member of Pyro Gallery in Louisville, KY. 

“New Beginnings”, in which Janet will be exhibiting with Erica Chinise Wilcox, opens at Pyro Gallery on January 3, with a reception from 5:30-8:30 pm

Art [squared] Spotlight: Billy Hertz

To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of LVA’s Art [squared] Event to Benefit Children’s Fine Art Classes, we will feature five local artists who are contributing 24” x 24” paintings to be sold at the event through a Silent Auction. Today we spotlight Billy Hertz:

“My paintings of landscapes have become far removed from any traditional definition of that genre; yet they still maintain a slender but sustaining thread to the concept of representational image. I paint "ariel" views of farmland - the furrows of plowed fields are sometimes rendered as transparent textures.” 

"Pink Cloud at Sunrise" by Billy Hertz, Mixed media painting, 24x20x1in, 2017, POR

Hertz has exhibited all over the United States, and in Germany, Italy, and Russia, and his work is included in several private collections.

“My fascination with the dark, fertile earth of cultivated fields led to loose interpretations of the landscapes; this manipulation into near abstraction by unorthodox perspectives i.e. Clouds and fields occupying the same plane and geometric shapes are built from layers of oil washes.” 

“The determined physicality of the color fields is accentuated by a collage element, so that the terrain is rendered with a dash of topical relief that introduces a new element to my vocabulary.”

“The blurring of naturalism and non-representational in the imagery obfuscates the intention enough to create some mystery in a subject usually thought of as straightforward (the landscape) and hopefully seduces my viewers into completing the narrative for themselves.”

In addition to his own inestimable work as an artist, Hertz has been a gallery operator for more than 20 years, and was an early pioneer in transforming the near east downtown area of Louisville, KY that is now known as the NuLu district. Galerie Hertz now operates in the Smoketown neighborhood of Louisville.

"Garden Plot #1" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil on panel (painting), 12.5x16.5x3.75in 2017, POR

Hometown: Boynton Beach, Florida

Education: BFA in Ceramics, Florida Atlantic University, 1972; 1974 Post Graduate, Painting, Florida Atlantic University Painting, University of Louisville, Post Graduate Painting
Website: www.galeriehertz.com

Scroll down for more images

"Seaport" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil on panel (painting), 16x20x3.75in, 2016-17, POR

"Fields #2" by Billy Hertz, Oil pencil & foam core on panel mixed media painting 16x201in, 2017, POR

"Fields Meet River", by Billy Hertz, Oil & pencil (painting) on panel, 20x24x3.75in, 2017, POR

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

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