Artists Talk with LVA: February 29, 2024

The 2024 LVA Honors takes place on March 21, 2024 at the LVA Building. This week is the 1st of 3 conversations with Honors recipients, C.J. Pressma (Legacy Award), Jon Cherry (Community Impact), Amanda Thompson (Teaching), & Sheila fox (Emerging Artist). You may purchase tickets to this fundraiser HERE.

In 1970 C.J. Pressma founded the Center for Photographic Studies – an alternative school of creative photography. The Center provided a learning experience for those seeking to explore photography as creative expression. During its eight- year existence the center attracted students from over 35 states and foreign countries to its full-time resident program and provided part-time instruction and darkroom access for hundreds of students in the Louisville metropolitan area. Its two galleries provided monthly photographic exhibits featuring the works of local, regional, and internationally acclaimed photographic artists including Ansel Adams and Minor White. In 1978 he was awarded a National Endowment Fellowship in Photography.

In 1979 Pressma embarked on a career as a multimedia producer and marketing communications specialist. In 1984, his seven part series Witness to the Holocaust, was released in the U.S. and Canada where it remains in distribution today. One of the first productions to use survivor interviews as the exclusive content to tell the story of the Holocaust, Witness to the Holocaust has received numerous national awards

Jon Cherry is a photojournalist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Jon works  as a stringer with Getty Images, Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg News, 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. Jon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography as a part of the Getty Images team for “comprehensive and consistently riveting photos of the attack on the U.S. Capitol” with Win McNamee, Spencer Platt, Drew Angerer, and Sam Corum.

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.

Artebella On The Radio: May 27

Jon Cherry is a happening photojournalist who has covered the 2020 Louisville Black Lives Matter protests and was in Washington on January 6. His work is currently on exhibit at the Portland Museum and as a part of the Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibition at The Speed and he is our guest this week Tune in to WXOX 97.1 or stream @ Artxfm.com Thursday at 10 am.

Exhibiting at The Portland Museum n conjunction with Voices and Votes, an exhibit from The Smithsonian. June 12.

Jon’s work is also included in Promise, Witness, Remembrance at The Speed through July 24

“I am dedicated to capturing moments that spark action without words and convey emotions that may be otherwise foreign to the viewer. This work requires an intensive approach to challenges.  ‘Never walk past a problem you can solve,’ was my father’s credo, and it is this stride that carries me through all my pursuits.” 

He works as a stringer with Getty Images and The New York Times and has been published independently by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and others.