animals
Artebella On The Radio: June 3
This week we talk with James Russell May about his work and how a single catastrophic moment may or may have not have influenced his paintings. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com Thursday at 10 am.
James Russell May is a native of Savannah, Georgia and a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. He has exhibited widely throughout the United States. He currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky.
Vignette: Monica Barnett
“Thoroughbred Stallion” by Monica Barnett, Graphite, 40x30in, 2019, $975
In Kentucky, you will find horses as a subject in the work of many artists. It seems particularly inevitable for painters. Perhaps it is the power and speed, or the movement even in more relaxed moments, that draws them. For Monica Barnett, it seems to be all of these things.
“I have been an artist my entire life, and while I have focused on animals in my drawings and paintings, my work is centered on horses.”
In one image we have an anatomical study suitable for a veterinary text, and in another, the equine forms are highly stylized as figures on a spectral carousel, uneasily situated in an undetermined fantasy space that elicits the opposite of the expected reaction to a child on a carnival ride. The subjective use of color even lends the human child in the image a slightly sinister aspect.
“Carousel Ride” by Monica Barnett, Acrylic on wood, 48x48in, 2019, $3000
Barnett was for many years a Part-time Staff Artist at The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, where she created drawings, maps, and charts for daily news articles and was a page designer for all feature sections, The Saturday Scene, and the Sunday Magazine.
In March of 2019 Barnett was in the Huber Farm Winery Art and Wine "Stella di Luce" Show; in May she was in the Mother's Day Spring Art Show at Mellwood Art & Entertainment Center; and early March through late May she had a drawing in a juried show in Lexington at the Living Arts and Sciences Center.
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: Berea College, B.A., 1986, drawing and sculpture.
Website: monicawbarnett.wordpress.com
Scroll down for more images
“Mare and Foal” by Monica Barnett, Acrylic on wood, 48x24in, 2019, $975.
“Cougar Outlook” by Monica Barnett, Graphite, 24x30in, 2019, $500
“Cougar Outlook” (detail) by Monica Barnett, Graphite, 24x30in, 2019, $500
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.
Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.
Vignette: Macel Hamilton
“Rooster” by Macei Hamilton, Acyrlic on wood, 12x18in, 2018, Private Collection
“Serious” art people are often skittish about paintings of animals; simple, straightforward, portraits of pets are the work of “hobbyists” they might say. Yet the concept that any artist’s practice draws directly from their immediate environment and experience is a common point of discussion in any critical appraisal.
Macel Hamilton resides in the knobs of Casey County, Kentucky, a rural area in in which her menagerie of12 dogs and 12 cats is not that unusual. So why shouldn’t these plaintive yet precocious subjects serve as a valid expression of Hamilton’s environment? Hamilton was raised in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, so the attachment to the land and its non-human inhabitants comes naturally to Hamilton.
A nurse by profession, Hamilton has only been painting for about 4 years, and for having painted for so brief a time, there is authoritative us of the brush in capturing the details of this “Rooster” that is compelling. Nothing is overworked. The relative lack of experience seems to have merged with the intimate understanding of subject to finish a simple, naturalistic expression of wariness in this Bantam’s face. It is as individual as any portrait of a human subject.
Hometown: Ligon, Kentucky
Facebook: Macel's art
“Dobey” by Macei Hamilton, Pastel on sanded paper, 14x10in, 2019, Private Collection
“Horse” by Macei Hamilton, Acrylic on wood, 12x10in, 2018, Private Collection
“Baby” by Macei Hamilton, Acyrlic on canvas, 16x20in, 2018, Private Collection
“Low Rider” by Macei Hamilton, Acyrlic on canvas, 12x16in, 2019, Private Collection
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.
Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.
Art[squared] Spotlight: Douglas Miller
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
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
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
Written by Peter Berkowitz. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.
