“The optical quality of glass is my muse,” – Whitney “Bloom” Olsen.
"Rosy Retrospection" by Whitney Olsen in collaboration with Keegan Kruse, Light refraction photos, 7 - 22x22in frames, 2017, $500 each
Whitney Olsen, aka as Bloom, is a multi-dimensional artist working with glass, light, mixed media and “…multiple dimensions to indulge in the conversation of being.” If your first thought of glass art takes you to a place of vessels, Bloom’s work will upend those expectations.
“My work exists in the intersection between the corporeal and the imagination, where the fixed and infinite collide through tangible and intangible layers of energy. The optical quality of glass is my muse, translating our ephemeral understanding of the here and now through veiling multiple materials. Illusion is the gateway into my liminal world…”
"Absolute #3" by Whitney Olsen, Mixed media on wood, 58x30in, 2017, $1500
Bloom’s glass pieces are most often components in larger installation sculptures in which light is an active medium. The glass becomes a lens almost as assuredly as if we were peering through a kaleidoscope, and the work begins to shape the viewer’s perception of the environment the piece occupies.
“There is an energy that we possess that feels like butterflies fluttering inside us, it feels like we are going up to the top of a roller coaster. It’s an unsettled, scary but thrilling, anxiety that is beautiful and basic, and it’s so real because it’s your body telling you that you are alive. It’s called passion; the moment when you finally go outside of your comfort zone and you really start to listen to what you want, and you go for it. To be dangerous because it is necessary, and you are happy all the time since you are not missing out on what life has to offer because you are living the way you want to live. To be yourself; being wholly, soulfully, be-you-tifully YOU, like a flower. I want everyone to bloom.”
Since graduating from the Hite Institute at University of Louisville, Bloom has studied glass and neon at Penland School of Crafts and Pilchuck Glass School.
In 2017, Bloom exhibited as a part of Crossing Borders at the Huff Gallery at Spalding University, and had a solo show, Perennial Being at Tim Faulkner Gallery in Louisville.
Age: 25 Hometown: Crestwood, Kentucky Education: BFA in 3-D Studios, Concentrations in Glass & Sculpture, University of Louisville, 2015 Website:www.whitneyolsen.com Instagram: whitnaastyy
"Day Dreams" by Whitney Olsen, Blown, cold worked, slumped, etched glass, metal and light, 48x72in, 2015, $12,000
"Ethereal Study #3" by Whitney Olsen, Hand blown glass, video, dimensions vary, 2015, $8000
"TH(is) you and me and everyone else" by Whitney Olsen, Mixed media installation, dimensions vary, 2017
Robert Leo Jones in his studio. Photo by Sarah Katherine Davis For LVA (2016).
Not all artists have studios outside of their home, making participation in Open Studio Weekend a different challenge. Perhaps the best solution is when one artist invites another to join them for the weekend. Robert Leo Jones and Tom Cannady have been friends long enough that he was comfortable doing exactly that. Both are painters, but the differences in their work provide a striking contrast. Jones working mostly in abstract expressionism – I can think of no painter I have recently observed who more clearly harkens back to Pollock and the ‘drip’ technique from middle 20th century American painting, while Cannady is unabashedly representational, although his sun drenched images of Americans at leisure and the predominance of vintage automobiles connect us to the same period as Jones technique.
Tom Cannady working on a painting. Photo by Sarah Katherine Davis For LVA (2016).
Even when working figuratively, Jones’ color palette tends to darkness, so we see none of the well-lit, carefree escapades of a flourishing middle class that we find in Cannady’s images. Even though we are only looking at their work together because of circumstance, it is a tantalizing thought that the two might be working two sides of the same street; Cannady capturing the warm nostalgia for a time that seems deceptively simpler, a period that often is held up as an ideal of American morality, while Jones probes the inevitable heart of darkness lurking beneath the surface of that rose-colored memory.
"Jamestown 1972" by Tom Cannady, 30x30in, acrylic on canvas (2016), $1200 | BUY NOW
Cannady currently has pieces at the Makers Crucible Showroom in downtown Louisville, and he has a solo show opening there on December 8, 2016.
Jone's work has been featured at Huff Gallery at Spalding University, Urban Design Studio, Art [squared], and currently at Take A Seat, an exhibition at the Kentucky Artisan Center in Berea, Kentucky. Although predominately a painter, Jones also works occasionally in furniture repurpose and design. His current projects are layered paintings done in acrylic on canvas or Masonite panels.
"Three Humans" by Robert Leo Jones, 47x61in, acrylic on masonite (2015), $1950 | BUY NOW
You can visit Tom Cannady and Robert Leo Jones in Jone’s studio in Old Louisville during OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND, November 5 & 6, 2016. The event benefits scholarship programs for Louisville Visual Art and University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute and tickets may be purchased here.
Name: Tom Cannady Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Age: 58 Education: BS in Marketing and a minor in Art, Murray State University Website:http://www.tjcannady.com
Name: Robert Leo Jones Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Age: 72 Education: BS in Marketing, Kent State University Website:http:///www.robertleojones.com
"WHAT is going on down at the Tasty Creme?!" by Tom Cannady, 60x48in, acrylic on canvas (2016), $3600 | BUY NOW
"Banyans" by Robert Leo Jones, acrylic on canvas, 9x12in (2016), $125 | BUY NOW
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