Artists Talk With LVA: May 26, 2022

This week Skylar Smith, Letitia Quesenberry, Gibbs Rounsavall, & Martin Benson talk about how their work communicates together in Not A Certainty But A Circumstance at Quappi Projects. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk With LVA.

Skylar Smith is an artist, curator, and educator. Her work deals with micro and macro perceptions of the natural world, and human-scale politics that influence perception.

Smith’s work has been exhibited regionally and internationally, including at Sanskriti Kendra Foundation, New Delhi, India; and at the Sanbarbh Residency, Partapur, India. She has completed Artist Residencies in India at Sanskriti Kendra and Sanbarbh Residency; and Colegio Trener, an elementary school in Lima, Peru. 

In 2020 Smith curated BallotBox, a contemporary art exhibition examining past and present voting rights with support from Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville Metro, Louisville Visual Art, and Great Meadows Foundation. BallotBox was on display in Louisville Metro Hall and at 21c Museum Louisville through March 2021. 

Letitia Quesenberry lives and works in Louisville Kentucky. Through the play of material, process, surface and technology, Quesenberry creates hypnotic objects that extend the boundaries of visual perception. Her bright amalgamations contain layers of vibratory and translucent elements: color correction film, tinted resin, mica dust, coal slag, sanded plexiglass, fluorescent paint, LEDs. She tempers the impulse to understand her work conclusively by focusing on visibility, bewilderment, and the desire to celebrate uncertainty.

Gibbs Rounsavall is a Louisville-based geometric abstract painter who was featured as one of 13 artists in Louisville Magazine’s, “13 Artists You Need to Know Now” issue. 

 His work has been included in academic presentations on subjects from abstract art to urban climate change. He has appeared in print, radio, and online interviews and feature articles. He has been invited as a guest artist to speak at events for arts organizations and academic settings. Most recently in 2017, he spoke on the subject of Serendipity for the Creative Mornings monthly lecture series titled, “How to Become a Serendipitous Learner.”

Martin L. Benson’s exploration of the healing power of art has its roots in personal experience. Born in Georgia and raised in Kentucky, Benson’s college education was temporarily interrupted when he became seriously ill and had to return home. “[That experience] opened up my world to my spirituality, which fostered a healthier relationship with myself and the world,” says Benson.

Benson’s hunger for greater understanding and meaning led him to the ancient science of Sacred Geometry –  the geometry used in the design of religious structures, sacred places, and religious art – and to the mathematical underpinnings of the cosmos. “Math’s universal language transcends linguistics, symbolism, and mythology, while at the same time remaining strongly connected to it,” says Benson. “Its inherent principles indicate the thumbprint of the creator.”

Not a Certainty But a Circumstance: April 29 - June 4
Letitia Quesenberry, Gibbs Rounsavall, Skylar Smith, & Martin Benson

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A Talk With Great Meadows Critic-In-Residence Kóan Jeff Baysa

Baysa with Brianna Harlan while visiting the LVA exhibit, “Ballet Box”, curated by Skylar Smith.

Kóan Jeff Baysa is a specialist physician, writer, art collector, Whitney Museum ISP Curatorial Alumnus, and AICA member who networks the areas of medical science and contemporary culture and creates interactive exhibitions and forums that focus on health perception, acculturation, sustainability, access to creative experiences and the sensate human being. Some of these goals are achieved through his company, SENSEight, and the Come to Your Senses Series. Others are manifest in two startups: Collectrium, that pioneered image recognition software for art, and Medical Avatar, a visually personalized avatar on a health app for handheld devices, where his current focus is the role of social media in patient engagement and formulating educational strategies for improving individual self-awareness and health betterment.

He is currently the 2020 Great Meadows Foundation Critic-In-Residence. The residency was intended to be only for the months of February and March, but the CoVID 19 pandemic dramatically altered his plans to return to Los Angeles, his home base, or the location of his next adventure in Hawaii, so he is staying with us a bit longer. I spoke with him at length on March 26 about his observations on the art community in Kentucky and other subjects.

Baysa’s mission, as was the case with the previous Critics-In-Residence from Great Meadows, was to visit a wide array of visual artists in their studios. Of course, about halfway through his tenure, social distancing took over because of the growing coronavirus pandemic. Still, he estimates he did personal or live social media interactions with over 50 artists so far, and he hopes to accomplish more now that his stay in this area has been extended. “Using social media you miss the dimensionality, texture, and visceral feeling of the work, but in terms of what sort of observations and advice I am able to give the artist, I believe that hasn’t changed.” We were pleased that he did manage to visit LVA’s “Ballot Box” exhibit at Metro Hall, conceived and curated by Skylar Smith, while the building was still open to the public.

Even more than his predecessors, Baysa had emphasized group meetings and public events in his schedule, but most of it had to be canceled. “I’m a grass-roots person,” explains Baysa, “and I approach with a perspective formed from multiple overlapping careers: medicine, collecting, and curating. I arrived with an open mind, but I had an idea of coming to Louisville to investigate the interstices of the art world here. I am looking at the diversification of the community, art made in prison, art made by special needs individuals - ‘incarceration’ in any form, even if self-imposed.” How much has social isolation affected his ambition? “I had planned on traveling the state more. I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to explore Appalachian art on this trip, especially Queer Appalachian artists that I’ve heard about. Which just means I will definitely be returning.”

Baysa has traveled and worked all over the globe, and when asked how he saw Louisville fitting into an international landscape, he answered, “States can be considered entities within themselves, with something like a creed among the communities found there. What I have discovered is that Kentucky has an air of Southern Hospitality, a politeness that is certainly very welcoming, but it begs the question of how do you then develop a useful critical perspective, which I think is what is badly needed here.“

Baysa, Stan Squirewell, Susan Moremen, & Lance G. Newman II.

“Kentucky, and Louisville in particular, has been described as, ‘where the south meets the west’. What I have found is that it is a city filled with conundrums. It is also called the most cultured city in the MidWest, but at the same time, it is the 4th most segregated city in the region and has the 4th highest number of deaths from opioid overdose. But are artists addressing these issues?” The open space Basa leaves in the dialogue there suggests that he hasn’t found sufficient evidence that they are, but his recommendation is problematic in this moment of government-issued orders to stay at home and quarantine. “I look at the LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) program (public talks that happen internationally in 30 cities and which have now moved on-line) as an example of events that break down what I call ‘stealth regation - the isolation that Louisville needs to overcome. It could boost the common integrity of the art community.” 

With Baysa’s unique background crossing medicine, science, art, and broader cultural concerns, I wondered about his take on our current public health crisis. ”People will always seek ways to lessen the anxiety and art will help,” he offered. We spoke at length about the opportunity for new forms to develop during this period, as artists turn to social media both as a means of self-expression and a method for reinforcing the existing community and perhaps building new ones.”

For visual art, some models are already in place. “The Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco has placed their current and upcoming exhibits online.” In Louisville, Moremen Gallery has posted both an on-line catalog and a video tour of Anne Peabody’s Sunspike exhibit that was opening at the very moment that non-essential businesses were being closed, and the University of Louisville Hite Art Institute MFA candidate Shae Goodlet’s Invocation exhibit is also online.

Big Talkers: Kóan Jeff Baysa is a virtual lecture from Baysa hosted on Zoom by Ruckus and Great Meadows Foundation on April 7 beginning at 6:00 pm.

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2020 by 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.