Bob Lockhart, Cedric Ballarati, & Lynn Duke join to speak about their new exhibit at Pyro Gallery opening April 1. Tune in to 97.1 FM/Artxfm each Thursday to hear Artists talk with LVA.
Bob Lockhart is an award-winning sculptor whose work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, the Indianapolis Art Museum, and many others. In addition, Lockhart's pieces have been commissioned by the Louisville Zoo, by numerous churches and schools, and by private collectors.
Cedric Ballaratti was educated in Architecture at Belgium Liege University and in photography at Belgium Liege Art Academy. His works have been exhibited in group and solo shows from 2007 and his first photography book “Terre de chiens” was released in 2019. He is currently living and working in Louisville, Kentucky.
Lynn Duke was born in Tuscaloosa Alabama. After retiring from a long and successful career as a surgical nurse, she began studying with Laura Ross about 10 years ago and is now a ceramic artist at AA Clay Studios.
Friends: Bob Lockhart, Lynn Duke, Amber Thieneman, & Cédric Ballarati
April 1 - May 1 with reception April 3, 1-4 pm Pyro Gallery, 1006 East Washington Street
“The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn’t pose. He isn’t aware of the camera.” – Patrick Demarchelier
"Murphy" by Joyce Goldin, digital painting (2013)
Drawings of domestic animals may not reach the loftiest heights of fine art, but they connect with the wider population in important ways. Dog lovers are famous for commissioning portraits of their beloved companions, and, in her latest work, Joyce Goldin has been rendering them digitally.
Goldin has been drawing and painting most of her life, but her love of dogs has led her into a series of digital canine portraits rendered with the plasticity of paint. After layering color in loose, organic fields reminiscent of watercolor, Goldin applies a very kinetic line to define the shape and give the image some detail. A translucent aspect lends the images the quality of having been painted on glass, which makes the warmth and expressiveness given to each individual canine all the more striking.
“I started to find my identity and prominence through artistic creation, and the physical and conceptual relationship between humanity and nature became the starting point.” - Julio Cesar Rodriguez
Artist, Julio Cesar Rodriguez
Julio Cesar Rodriguez is unquestionably a Surrealist painter, his work echoes some of the great masters of the movement, such as Magritte, and in the new images shown here, he still retains the disruption of the human form that is a common characteristic of his previous work, but there is also a simpler, more innocent feeling here. Although the monochromatic images are rendered in acrylic, they have the graphic quality of drawings, and the merging of young girl’s heads with aviary studies are suggestive of an other worldly relationship between the two.
"A" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x12in, acrylic on canvas (2017), $500 | BUY NOW
"I describe my work as a mixture of figuration and expressionism with an air of surrealism, where I project my individuality as a creator poetically and philosophically,” says Rodriguez. “I am interested in the connection between man and nature and everything that connects to both. I recreate this in a symbolic way and convert them into a scene with characters in ambiguous situations.”
The fantastical aspect of Rodriguez’ paintings are not removed from autobiography. We have accepted that dreams are always deeply revelatory, and the artist’s imagination becomes a bridge into that alternate world.
“This sample of my most recent work is a philosophical approach to those formal-poetic visions with which I'm reviewing my life. Each work becomes an illusion of alternate reality where I have fun with my unconscious and dialogue with my memories and shared memories in order to build an illusory present.”
"B" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x8in, acrylic on canvas (2017)
“From that I started to find my identity and prominence through artistic creation, and the physical and conceptual relationship between humanity and nature became the starting point. My work is a recreation symbolic of my personal experiences, the reflection of my life - my joys and sorrows, my loneliness and thoughts ...like the seasons of nature. My paintings present my intimate works from silence, where with my own angels struggle to break free from everyday life and thus recreate my passage through this world. My works are the ideal medium for channeling my interiority as creator; windows that open to the world, becoming the exact connection between the viewer and the artist - and in the end, both witness the magic.”
November 5 & 6, Rodriguez will be participating in the 2017 Open Studio Weekend, presented by Louisville Visual Art and the University of Louisville’s Hite Institute for Art.
Age: 40 Hometown: Holguin, Cuba Education: BFA, Fine Art Academy, Holguin, Cuba Gallery Representation: Revelry Boutique Gallery Website: www.juliocesart.com
"G" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x8in, acrylic on canvas (2017), $400 | BUY NOW
"B (detail)" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez
"E" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x8in, acrylic on canvas (2017), $400 | BUY NOW
"C" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x8in, acrylic on canvas (2017)
"F" by Julio Cesar Rodriguez, 8x8in, acrylic on canvas (2017)
“All my art is in some way about other art, even if the other art is cartoons.” — Roy Lichtenstein
Patricia Watson is a highly motivated educator with a successful track record for teaching art to elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate students. She is also experienced in coordinating and managing arts programs. As an artist, she has most recently concentrated on illustrations of famous faces.
“I have always enjoyed portraiture drawing and painting. I decided to try high contrast portraits using sharpie markers as my choice of medium. It is permanent - with no margin for error.”
The technique invests even the most ordinary pictures with an iconic sensibility. Some of the subjects lend themselves very easily to this quality – it is arguable that ANY picture of Muhammad Ali or Salvador Dali is inherently iconic and, the portrait of 1970’s songwriter and musician Leon Russell, represents the moment he transitioned from session musician to Pop Star. Watson is affecting a deliberate layer of affectionate kitsch on images of individuals who have risen to a certain status in the Pop Culture firmament, harkening back to a period in which illustration dominated the media. In an age when such things seem all but forgotten, it would not be at all difficult to imagine these images on magazine or album covers. Ask your parents.
"Ali" by Patricia Watson, 11x14in, sharpie on paper
Watson also paints traditionally, and has recently been experimenting with abstract painting, but these sharpie portraits are popular with the public, and she is often asked to do commissions using the technique.
Watson is currently teaching at Meyzeek Middle School in Louisville, and she is a former Elementary and Middle Grades Art Instructor, Louisville Visual Art’s Children’s Fine Art Classes (CFAC).
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Education: BA with a major in visual communications, Kean University, New Jersey; MAT - Teaching Art K-12, University of Louisville Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artchikdiva/
"Chris" by Patricia Watson, 11x14in, sharpie on paper
"Dali" by Patricia Watson, 11x14in, sharpie on paper
"Gregg" by Patricia Watson, 11x14in, sharpie on paper
"Leon" by Patricia Watson, 11x14in, sharpie on paper
The Community Foundation of Louisville, in partnership with Louisville Visual Art, has presented Louisville-based artist and printmaker, Adrienne Miller, with the fifth annual Mary Alice Hadley Prize for Visual Art. The $5,000 award is an opportunity for local artists to enhance their careers through a targeted enrichment experience.
Miller will use the prize to research the landscape and art historical influence of the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. The two week trip will cover close to 2,000 miles in a loop through the Four Corners region and will include a variety of stops, including several different pueblo ruin sites, printmaking studios in Albuquerque, The Georgia O’Keefe museum and archives, several National Parks, energy vortexes in Sedona, and several large earth works in the region.
"Keep Out/ Stay In" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016), $600 | BUY NOW
“I want the experience to be transformative and immersive so that I come away feeling as though the experience really was a tipping point for me,” said Miller of the Hadley Prize enrichment experience. “I want to return to Louisville renewed to create a whole new body of work.”
"Come With Me Into The Void" by Adrienne Miller, 16x20in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2016)
Miller’s images are hybrids of the representational and abstract that explore the human experience of constructed space. “Within the tradition of landscape art, the term picturesque refers to a view where the human presence is apparent,” states Miller. “We are often presented with a view or vista for our consideration. When viewing a landscape we are allowed to be objective, but when viewing ourselves, does that perspective change?”
“Within the delicacy of the Mylar drawings, I am beginning to break apart the environments into tiny details such as potted plants, ladder rungs, or the tilt of a roof line. For me, the landscape I embody on a daily basis is the idea of the home, an interior and much more intimate space. In some, the details explain a building interior while in others it appears to be just outside, similar to a residential yard space. The fluttering of the Mylar layers serves to remind the viewer of the constant state of change these sort of psychologically charged places experience. Through changes in perspective and unrealistic coexistence, the work encourages the viewer to address their own environments as well as themselves.”
"Man Made Islands" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW
The $5,000 M.A. Hadley Prize is awarded from the George and Mary Alice Hadley Fund at the Community Foundation of Louisville. The endowment was established in 1991, and it supports the arts and humanities, particularly visual arts, crafts, theater and the Louisville Free Public Library. The award is a partnership between the Community Foundation of Louisville and Louisville Visual Art, which managed the application process.
Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee Education: BFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography, Murray State University / MFA, Studio Art with an emphasis in Printmaking, Northern Illinois University Website:http://www.adrienne-miller.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ay_dree_un/
"Man Made Islands (detail)" by Adrienne Miller,
"Maintaining the Overgrowth" by Adrienne Miller, 32x40in, acrylic gouache and colored pencil on mylar (2017), $1200 | BUY NOW
