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Artists Talk with LVA: January 4, 2024

Carnegie Center for Art & History opened "Intentionally Intimate: The Choice to Work Small," which runs through March 16 & the artists, Wendi Smith, Nancy Currier, Caroline Waite, Kay Grubola, and Rachel Singel joined us this week.

Wendi Smith’s work has been exhibited regionally for over thirty years. She has been a member of local co-ops Zephyr and PYRO Gallery, as well as a supporter of the local arts scene. Exhibit credits include Four Star Gallery in Indianapolis, the Carnegie for the Arts in Cincinnati, and Zephyr Gallery in Louisville. She has taught fine arts at Bellarmine University and Indiana University Southeast.

Nancy Currier is a painter who also creates drawings and mixed-media sculptures. She grew up around art as the daughter of the esteemed Louisville painter Mary Ann Currier. She also has taught art at Louisville's Foster Traditional Academy.

Caroline Waite is from an English village called Cookham Dean, known for its famous and eccentric resident, wartime artist Stanley Spencer whose stylized scenes in the 1940s of Cookham village life and residents have hung in the nation's leading museums. He described Cookham as a “village in Heaven”.

In England, Waite taught at Northbrook College, Sussex North East Wales University Telford College, Shropshire. Since moving to the U.S. in 2001, she has lived in Texas and New Mexico but prefers her current home Louisville.

Kay Polson Grubola is an artist and independent curator in Louisville, Kentucky. Creating assemblages using natural found objects, Grubola’s work is a celebration of nature. The work is also an allegory for the natural process of human life, both its ascendance and its decline. She has shown her work nationally and internationally. 

Grubola was the Executive Director of Nazareth Arts, a regional arts center on the campus of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, as well as the Artistic Director of the Louisville Visual Art Association.  For 10 years she taught drawing and printmaking at Bellarmine University and Indiana University Southeast. 

Rachel Singel is a printmaker and faculty at the Hite Institute at the University of Louisville. Rachel has participated in residencies at the Penland School of Crafts, the Venice Printmaking Studio, the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, and Art Print Residence in Barcelona. As an artist interested in working using non-toxic methods, Singel, has studied with the founder Grafisk Eksperimentarium studio in Andalusia in 2018 and worked as a resident artist at Wharepuke studio in New Zealand.

Special

Open Studio Spotlight: Hite Institute Grows West in Portland

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On the outside, right now, it is a decidedly non-descript building. There is evidence of renovation, but no signage yet. Come closer to the building at 1606 Rowan Street though…press your face against the new glass windows and you will discover that the interior is much further along. Freshly painted drywall and track lights are visible and some random art paraphernalia is finding its way to these rooms.  

Helen Payne

Helen Payne

The University of Louisville Hite Art Institute’s Master of Fine Arts program is moving into the historic Portland neighborhood of Louisville a little early because this Saturday and Sunday is the annual Open Studio Weekend, and Curatorial Studies professor and Director of Galleries Chris Reitz has been determined to see this location included on this 5th year of touring artist’s studios. Open Studio Weekend is a co-production of Louisville Visual Art and the University of Louisville’s Hite Institute, a fundraiser for LVA’s Children’s Fine Art Classes and the Hite’s Mary Spencer Nay Scholarship.

The inclusion of the Hite MFA studios represents a dramatic expansion of Open Studio Weekend participants in the Portland neighborhood, which includes artists Victor Sweatt and Tara Remington in the LVA building at 1538 Lytle Street, just 2 blocks from Hite, John Brooks’ Quappi Projects space next door to LVA, Billie Bradford’s woodworking shop across Lytle Street from LVA, sculptor Bryan Holden on Main Street, and the Dolfinger Building on Montgomery Street, which will include painter Julia Davis and fiber artists Colleen and Maggie Clines.

Occupying a renovated warehouse constructed in the 1800s, the Fine Arts Department will offer studio space for MFA students and faculty focusing on ceramics, drawing, fiber, glass, painting, printmaking, sculpture, mixed media, book arts, and design. Faculty and MFA program artists who are listed as participants in the 2018 Open Studio Weekend are: 

Mitch Eckert – Photography                         James Grubola - Drawing
Scott Massey - Sculpture                              Tiffany Calvert – Painting
Ying Kit Chan – Mixed Media                      Moonhe Baik - Fiber
Barbara Hanger - Drawing                          Mary Carothers – Mixed Media
Zed Saeed – Photography                            Megan Bickel - Painting
Helen Payne – Drawing                                Reid Broadstreet – Mixed Media
Che Rhodes - Glass                                       Rachid Tagoulla – Photography
Monica Stewart – Mixed Media                   Lauren Bader - Sculpture
Shae Goodlet - Drawing                                Katherine Watts - Printmaking
Todd Burns – Ceramics                                KCJ Szwedzinski - Glass
Tammy Burke – Mixed Media                     Meena Khalili – Mixed Media         
Karen Weeks - Printmaking                                                                                               

                                                       

The building will also provide space for the Anthropology department’s Master’s program, with gallery space and outreach programs planned for the Portland neighborhood. Construction will continue for some time, but classes in the building are scheduled to begin in January 2019.   

Open Studio Weekend Directories are being sold at the following locations:

Moonhe Baik, 33"x168" 100% cotton thread, 100% linen thread threadwork

Moonhe Baik, 33"x168" 100% cotton thread, 100% linen thread threadwork

AA Clay Studio & Gallery - 2829 S 4th Street, Louisville, KY
AC Hotel Marriott - 727 E Market Street, Louisville, KY
Artist & Craftsman Supply - 1002 Barret Avenue, Louisville, KY
CRAFT{s} Gallery & Mercantile - 572 S 4th Street, Louisville, KY
Cressman Center for Visual Arts - 100 E Main Street, Louisville, KY
Kentucky Fine Art Gallery - 2400 Lime Kiln Lane, Louisville, KY
Kentucky Mudworks - 506 Baxter Avenue, Louisville, KY
Louisville Visitor Center - 301 S 4th Street, Louisville, KY
Louisville Visual Art - 1538 Lytle Street, Louisville, KY
Nitty Gritty - 996 Barret Avenue, Louisville, KY
Preston Arts Center - 3048 Bardstown Road, Louisville, KY
Revelry Boutique Gallery - 742 E Market St, Louisville, KY
Silica Ceramic Studio - 222 W 6th Street, Jeffersonville, IN 

Juried Exhibition Opening Reception and OSW Launch Party

November 2, 2018
6:00pm–8:00pm
The Cressman Center (100 E. Main St.)

Open Studio Weekend Self-guided Tours

November 3-4, 2018
Saturday and Sunday 12 noon–6pm

“35 THINGS THAT HAVE ONCE TOUCHED EACH OTHER STAY UNITED” by Megan Bickel, c-print. Digital Collage of artist materials: glitter, holographic film, excerpts from "too nice"

“35 THINGS THAT HAVE ONCE TOUCHED EACH OTHER STAY UNITED” by Megan Bickel, c-print. Digital Collage of artist materials: glitter, holographic film, excerpts from "too nice"


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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Painting

Vignette: Uhma Janus

"Alien I ZD" by Uhma Janus, Acrylic on panel, 32x24in, 2016, POR

"Alien I ZD" by Uhma Janus, Acrylic on panel, 32x24in, 2016, POR

Mexican-born artist Uhma Janus’ earliest initiation into the arts was at the age of 7 when her mother taught her introductory piano lessons. She developed into a classical musician, but pursued a degree in Physics at the University of Guanajuato and nursing degrees at the University of Louisville. When she came to feel a desire to paint, it would make perfect sense that her curiosity for the understanding of the physical world and Universe and her background with music would substantially inform her imagery.

Theoretical particles were a focus in Janus’ studies, and the busy compositions that rely on repetitive pattern express an innate sense of the unseen realities of existence.  Her early work is characterized by an exploration of the versatility of acrylic ink when tracing dots, lines, and curves in both spontaneous and controlled conditions. Later, her work delineated clearer patterns and figures that began to shift away from the abstract and, eventually, she began doing portraits. The journey reverses the more typical path from representational to abstract.

"XXXIII" by Uhma Janus, Oil on canvas, 72x48in, 2017, POR

"XXXIII" by Uhma Janus, Oil on canvas, 72x48in, 2017, POR

Janus doesn’t use the words, “self-taught” when describing herself, but her intuitive approach to making visual art feels like an honest expression of her life story up until that point. “Alien I Z D” displays a kinetic energy that resembles a graphic representation of sound such as an oscillogram.

Though she started with acrylic inks, Janus has expanded her media to include acrylic and oil paint, mixed media, graphite and color pencils in the variety of her projects.

“My focus has been the authenticity of the emotionally-empowered, fully-intentional-expressive being in action. My work engenders the recognition of the merit and gravity that the most basic graphic elements (the dots, lines, and curves) have in and of themselves. This action finds its own graphic representation as a materialized emergent phenomenon only aesthetically-significant as a posteriori entity.”

When Janus talks about her work, her language is infused with intellectualism and scientific vocabulary that reflects her background in physics, but the work itself feels intuitive; emotionalism filtered through a stringent process in the manner of the Abstract Expressionists.

Her exploration for “modalities of expression” has also led her back to music, and Janus has recently taken up guitar, violin, cello, and darbuka (a goblet-shaped drum of Middle Eastern origin), all at what she calls “a beginner level. She is also composing and writing.

Hometown: Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico
Education: BS Nursing; BS Physics; AD Nursing
Website: www.behance.net/uhmajanus5dfd

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"Ms. Cursedly Expectant" by Uhma Janus, Graphite on paper, 24x18in, 2018, POR

"Ms. Cursedly Expectant" by Uhma Janus, Graphite on paper, 24x18in, 2018, POR

"Abysmal Fall" by Uhma JanusOil on panel, 16x11in, 2017, POR

"Abysmal Fall" by Uhma JanusOil on panel, 16x11in, 2017, POR

"Ms. Empty Hunger" by Uhma Janus, Graphite on paper, 24x18in, 2018, POR

"Ms. Empty Hunger" by Uhma Janus, Graphite on paper, 24x18in, 2018, POR

"Broken Fly" by Uhma Janus, Acrylic and mixed media on panel. 16x16in, 2016, POR

"Broken Fly" by Uhma Janus, Acrylic and mixed media on panel. 16x16in, 2016, POR


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

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Drawing

Art[squared] Spotlight: Douglas Miller

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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 highlight Douglas Miller:

Douglas Miller’s approach to art entered the Louisville consciousness subtly, evolving from handcrafted ear X-tacy signage to the mostly-dimensional animals familiar today to visitors of Cellar Door Chocolates, Copper & Kings American Brandy and Edenside Gallery, as well as gallerists from Asheville to Quebec.
 

"Miller Thesis 1 (Title 1)" by Douglas Miller, Ink, pencil, and acrylic on paper, 39X50in, 2018

"Miller Thesis 1 (Title 1)" by Douglas Miller, Ink, pencil, and acrylic on paper, 39X50in, 2018

His current project finds him at U of L’s Cressman Center downtown achieving success by examining failure with a new exhibition he’s calling Title (strikethrough). Miller says these drawings explore themes of “indeterminacy, failed projects, and the complications of representation. This series is informed by preliminary drawings, marginalia, and written notations that are inherent in the formulation processes of both visual and literary compositions.”

Miller was inspired by Russian author Nikolai Gogol’s unfinished 1842 novel Dead Souls “to conflate literary theories with visual representation” with his drawings. Compelled by process as a topic, Miller continues, “The Title (strikethrough) series presents fragmentary images, texts, and digressive narratives that demonstrate intermediaries between propositional states and reconciled concepts … ultimately finding interchanges between the methods of representation and what is represented, this series underscores the ruptures in the production of meaning.”

"Miller Thesis 3 (Title 3)" by Douglas Miller, Pencil and acrylic on paper, 24X30in, 2017

"Miller Thesis 3 (Title 3)" by Douglas Miller, Pencil and acrylic on paper, 24X30in, 2017

This literary digression is a turn down a fresh alley for Miller. He says, “Modeling this series of drawings on methodologies typically constrained to literary texts, I intend to identify parallels between generating drawings and the formations of literary texts. Central to this thesis and the series of drawings is an emphasis on the disruptions of meaning and the digressive characteristics that adversely occur in the development of projects and how these function to create a more diverse, complicated, and ultimately uncertain interpretation.”

“In this way, the Title (strikethrough) series demonstrates a fictive series of narratives that are preparatory and indeterminate in anticipation of a larger conclusive work that is never reconciled.”

Miller’s MFA exhibition Title (strikethrough) is on view April 27 through August 4, 2018 at The University of Louisville's Cressman Center, with an opening reception April 27 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. He will also have work on exhibit at Lenihan Sotheby's International Realty in May of this year.

Education: BFA, University of Louisville, 2009                              Scroll down for more images
Website: www.douglassmillerart.com
Facebook: facebook.com/douglasmillerart/
Instagram: @douglasmillerart

"Miller Thesis 5 (Title 5)" by Douglas Miller, Pencil and watercolor on paper, 18X22in, 2017

"Miller Thesis 5 (Title 5)" by Douglas Miller, Pencil and watercolor on paper, 18X22in, 2017


Written by Peter Berkowitz. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

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Painting

Vignette: Laurie Fader - Open Studio Weekend Artist

Making the painting is a mysterious and compulsive search for an emotional reality.”      – Laurie Fader

Abstract art is a loaded phrase, words that conjure as much misunderstanding as mystery. In the simplest terms, perhaps the best thing we can say is that abstraction is universal - artists tapping into the subconscious to elicit emotional reactions and develop visual relationships through elements of color, shape, and texture. The same equation is typically at work in representational art, but with those elements fashioned within the familiar.

"Big Toe" by Laurie Fader, oil, 48x42in, 2017, $3200

"Big Toe" by Laurie Fader, oil, 48x42in, 2017, $3200

“Unconscious, subversive preoccupations are the driving force behind my paintings,” is how Laurie Fader puts it, “stabilized and excavated through the use of light and woven shapes of color. Making the painting is a mysterious and compulsive search for an emotional reality. Visual touchstones reveal complex psychological and intellectual states, contained within fragile, blistered and bubbled boundaries. It has become a metaphor for our political landscape as well, polarized and charged with dichotomies.”

"Plumage" by Laurie Fader, oil, mixed media on paper, 19x15in, 2017, $2200

"Plumage" by Laurie Fader, oil, mixed media on paper, 19x15in, 2017, $2200

Fader came to the abstract. Like so many artists, after years of representational work: “Freed from the perimeters of painting the landscape on site, which caught my interest for twenty years, now color can lead in a way it could not before. And with color comes delight in a different sort of visual and emotional journey.”

Fader is Associate Professor and Chair of Academic Affairs at Kentucky College of Art + Design at Spalding University, where she teaches Drawing II, Color and Design, Color and Design II, and Painting II. Since joining the faculty in 2010, she co-authored the BFA program before becoming Chair in 2011. In addition, she organized a Study Abroad Program and took 3 students to Umbria, Italy.

 

Earlier this year she finished an Artist’s Residency at Scuola Grafica in Venice, Italy.

Laurie Fader will be participating in the 2017 Open Studio Weekend, sponsored by Louisville Visual Art and University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute. Her studio, located in the Germantown neighborhood, will be open the weekend of November 4 and 5. Tickets for Open Studio Weekend will go on sale October 16. Click here for more information.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Age: 60
Education: BS, Honors, New York University, NYC; MFA, Painting, Yale School of Art.
Website: lauriefader@squarespace.com

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"Charted Territories" by Laurie Fader, mixed media on paper, 22x18in, 2017, $2500

"Charted Territories" by Laurie Fader, mixed media on paper, 22x18in, 2017, $2500

"Shroud" by Laurie Fader, mixed media, 13x19in, 2017, $2200

"Shroud" by Laurie Fader, mixed media, 13x19in, 2017, $2200

"Diversity" by Laurie Fader, mixed media, 32x28in, 2017, $2200

"Diversity" by Laurie Fader, mixed media, 32x28in, 2017, $2200

Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2017 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.