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

Artists Talk with LVA: April 27, 2023

Luminous: New Work From the Studio of Liz Price opens April 28 at Wheelhouse Art and Liz will be in the WXOX studios to discuss her work and family legacy. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Luminous: New Work by Liz Price

Opening reception: Friday, April 28th, 6:00 - 8:00 . The exhibition will be up until June 10th.

Liz Price was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and graduated from the University of Louisville in 1981 with an undergraduate degree in sculpture. She lived and worked in New York City for several years before moving to Philadelphia to attend the University of Pennsylvania. There she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1988.

Neil Welliver was chairman of the program then, while other critics and visiting artists included Rafael Ferrer, William Bailey, Altoon Sultan, and Alex Katz. Price paints in a painterly realist tradition, citing influences ranging from Cezanne, Matisse and Vuillard to Richard Diebenkorn, Fairfield Porter, Janet Fish, and Lois Dodd.

Artists Talk with LVA: November 17, 2022

John Begley speaks about curating Over the Moon: The Eclectic Art of Ann Farnsley, currently at The Carnegie Center for Art & History. Tune into WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

The exhibition Over the Moon: The Eclectic Art of Ann Farnsley, showcases the life and art of the Vevay, Indiana artist, was first at the Community Art Center of Switzerland County, and is now at the Carnegie Center for Art & History in New Albany through January 7, 2023.

John Begley is a Freelance art worker. Previously he was Gallery Director and Assistant Professor of Art (Emeritus), Critical and Curatorial Studies graduate program coordinator at the Allen R. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville, Director, of the Louisville Visual Art Association 1983 – 2001, Director, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, 1975-1983

Artists Talk With LVA: June 2, 2022

Reflections on Twelve Years: An LVA Exhibit for Metro Hall Curated by Keith Waits and Jonathan Cherry runs now through December 2022. It includes work from Carlos Gamez de Francisco, Ewa Perz, Jon Cherry, Destiny Jackson, Metro Communications Office, and The Polaroid Project from the Tyler Gerth Foundation and Louisville Urban League

Carlos Gamez de Francisco was born in post-revolutionary Cuba in 1987, to a Cuban-Spanish mother and a Cuban-American father. He grew up in Cuba and was educated in an academic style heavily influenced by the Russian Academy.  At age five, he determined, with absolute certainty, that he would be an artist. By the time he was fifteen, Gamez de Francisco was diligently painting 8 hours a day, every day. Today, he often spends 15 hours a day painting and feels “very blessed to do what I love.”

Highly awarded and exhibited, some of Carlos’ numerous awards include Fine Art Photographer of the Year, 2020, Moscow International Photo Awards, Moscow, Russia, Gold Award, 2020 Tokyo International Foto Awards, Tokyo, Japan, “Dreammakers” Artist in Residence at the Muhammad Museum, the Distinguished Scholarship from the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Guild Purchase Award from Evansville Museum. He have had solo shows at 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and Bentonville, Arkansas, Monica Graham Fine Art in Carmel, CA, Miller Gallery in Cincinnati, OH, Portland Art Gallery in Portland, ME, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in Miami, Florida, The Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Colonial Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba. His work has been exhibited at Art Market San Francisco (2022), Scope-Art Basel, Miami (2021 and 2012), Art Palm Beach (2014), Art Southampton, New York (2015), and Context Art Miami (2016).

Ewa Perz was born in Gdansk, Poland. There she received a masters degree in biology, but found her true passion to be in fine art. She left her job as a scientist to pursue her desire to create art. Living in Europe and Latin America before coming to the United States, paired with worldwide travel and taking classes with contemporary masters (Felo Garcia in Costa Rica, David Laffel in Santa Fe), allow Ewa an extensive visual approach to her paintings. Global cultures, styles and trends strongly influence her choices in themes. Ordinary shapes and colors are manipulated by Ewa’s expressive realism into breathtaking compositions. Her works are unique and compelling.

Currently, Ewa lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Her works can be found in many private and corporate collections throughout the United States and Europe.

Jonathan Cherry is a stringer with Getty Images 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.

Recently, it was announced that he had been chosen for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photographer as part of the Getty Images team sent to Washington DC on January 6, 2022.

Vignette: Macel Hamilton

Macel Hamilton, “Love”, oil, 11in x 14in, 2021, NFS

By profession, Macel Hamilton has been a Registered Nurse for 34  years, but seven years ago she started teaching herself to draw, and within a year she was painting. A native of Beaver, located in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, her simple portrait work captures a rural sensibility. Whether through technique - Hamilton favors natural lighting and has a knack for capturing it - or subject - each portrait is of a family member or close friend - the artist expresses the prosaic existence of the Appalachian region.

“My main goal with my art is to improve and learn. I really enjoy my art when I feel like I am learning and improving.”

Macel Hamilton, “Uncle”, oil, 11in x 14in, 2021, NFS

Not that the inspiration is the cliche of rural unsophistication. In “Husband”, Hamilton paints a spouse who was a professional studio musician for over 50 years with Capitol Records, working with many famous musicians in the 1960s, and an “Uncle” who was an Old Regular Baptist preacher in Eastern Kentucky. The focused energy present just before he begins a sermon is palpable.

Hamilton’s gift for rendering people with such unsparing realism doesn’t prevent her from capturing their humanity, it elevates it. There is empathy in the exploration of every hair and wrinkle in the flesh, and great warmth injected into the details. With “Love’, the deep connection between a middle-aged man and his aging father acknowledges the complicated emotions in familial relationships while hinting at the pain of witnessing the passing of generations. In 2021 “Love” was exhibited for six months in the Kentucky Capitol as a part of the Team Kentucky Gallery.  

SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE IMAGES

Macel Hamilton, “Husband”, oil, 16in x 20in, 2020, NFS

Macel Hamilton, “Old Rusted Lock”, watercolor on paper, 16in x 20in, NFS

Macel Hamilton, “Uncle”, oil, 11in x 14in, 2021, NFS

Macel Hamilton, “Life Is Good”, acrylic, 16in x 20in, 2019, NFS

Written by Keith Waits

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