Artists Talk with LVA: August 17, 2023

Cynthia Kelly Overall is a Bardstown, Kentucky artist well known for her oil paintings depicting rural landscapes and pastoral scenes. Her work holds an unmistakable luminosity and technical application reminiscent of Old Dutch masterworks with just a hint of a Kentucky accent.

She received her B.A. from the University of Kentucky, and her Master of Art and Master of Fine Art Degrees from the famed Rosary Graduate School of Fine Art in Florence, Italy.

Following two shows at the Villa Schifanosa in Florence, Cynthia returned to the United States, where she has exhibited in New York, Morehead State University; Frankfort, Kentucky; Atlanta; and at The Midwest Museum of American Art; and various other galleries throughout the United States.

Overall’s latest work focuses her attention to Dutch Golden Age Still Lifes, a popular movement that emerged in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age. 

Cynthia Kelly Overall's Fifty-One Shades of Gray...Still Life in the Dutch Manner. Open at Wheelhouse Art with a reception this Friday, August 18, 6:00 - 8:00 pm. There will be a gallery talk with the artist at 7:00 pm. The exhibition continues through September 30, 2023.

Artists Talk with LVA: March 30, 2023

Charles Ellis is a painter who has work now on exhibit at City Hall and this week he joins us in the WXOX studio. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists talk with LVA.

Charles Ellis was born in Lexington Kentucky now living in Old Louisville. He is an abstract colorist who works mainly in oil.

Painting oil on canvas, large abstracts with landscape imagery and portraits. Ellis also has worked on a series of prints of digitally manipulated photos that convey an image of perfect order through an abstract collection of squares of pure colors.

His work has been in many exhibitions, shows, and galleries yearly since 2000 in Kentucky, England, California, and Miami Florida.

Vignette: Barry Burcaw

"Pixilated" by Barry Burcaw, oil on canvas, 50x50in, 2-16, $2800

Barry Burcaw studied graphic design in school, earning a degree from the University of Bridgeport, but he only began painting once he retired from a long, successful career in advertising. This provides an easy explanation of why his compositions are so dominated by forceful geometric structure and bold saturated colors.

Often the abstract images remain rooted in representational sources; Burcaw is fond of landscapes and architectural sources as a point of departure, but it is not unusual for him to veer into diagrammatical structures of pure pattern and shape. “Pixilated” does this, as does “Vernal Equinox”, even if the title makes explicit that the qualities of atmosphere and climate that we assume were in the artist’s mind here. The lower half containing dark grey and earth tones beneath the blue and yellow tones in the upper half cannot help but connote landscape, if only because our expectations fill in the blanks with little prompting – doesn’t the abstract artist appropriately depend on the viewer’s frame of reference?  “Solar Flares” is more obvious in its subject, placing a brilliant yellow orb in the center, and Burcaw’s curled linear forms representing the sun’s angry expression are more whimsical in their effect than the fiery astronomical phenomenon that provide the inspiration for the piece.

"Impressions of Santorini" by Barry Burcaw, oil on canvas, 50x50in, 2017, $3500

There is an unyielding exactitude in Burcaw’s work that suggests a highly structured perspective on the world at large. Perhaps this is a common underlying truth of any artist who utilizes geometry in such bold, almost confrontational terms.

Burcaw recently placed 4 paintings with Zephyr Gallery as part of their Corporate Art Program.

Hometown: Palisades, New York
Age: 74
Education: BS in Graphic Design, University of Bridgeport, CT

Scroll down for more images

"Vernal Equinox" by Barry Burcaw, oil on canvas, 50x50in, 2017, $2800

"Solar Flares" by Barry Burcaw, oil on canvas, 50x50in, 2008 $3500

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

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Vignette: Valtcho Tonov

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“I believe in the beauty of ordinary subjects.” — Valtcho Tonov

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 "Greece" by Valtcho Tonov, 10x20 in, oil on linen panel (2016), $700 (comes in gold plein air style frame)| BUY NOW

Artist, Valtcho Tonov

Even though Valtcho Tonov has no formal, institutional diploma, through private lessons and countless workshops he has been relentless in pursuing a personal course of study in painting. For many years he practiced painting the figure from life in a class setting and the landscape en plein air.

“As my experience accumulates as an artist during the years I understand that it's important to convey feeling with my art and relate in a profound way to the viewer. I believe in the beauty of ordinary subjects. I consider myself an abstract impressionist, however my style varies depending of my mood and the way I start a new painting.”

"Cherokee Park Path" by Valtcho Tonov, 12x16 in, oil on linen panel (2016), $700 (comes in plein air style dark frame) | BUY NOW

We see the different moods in “Cherokee Park Path”, which perfectly captures the unique winter light on the snow, everything crisp and clear under the brilliant sun, of how the equine forms in “Southern Horses” seem rooted to the earth as if the are plants awaiting harvest, and is there an image more evocative of moodiness than a view of the skyline distorted as if being witnessed through a rain-streaked window in “Louisville Winter”.

This is what a painter does; working with one of the most plastic and expressive of mediums, the artist is able to communicate a heightened perception of the world, forcing us to look harder at our own environment and the aspects of nature that we too easily take for granted.

"Mc Neely Lake, Louisville" by Valtcho Tonov, 12x16in, oil on linen panel (2016), $700 (comes in plein air style dark frame) | BUY NOW

Tonov is a member of Oil Painters Of America and the Plein Air Painters of Kentucky. After moving to the United States in 2001, he eventually settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Tonov has continued his studies under the tutelage of renowned artists such as John Michael Carter, Phil Starke, and others. He is part of an ongoing uninstructed figurative drawing/painting workshop at Mellwood Art Center in Louisville.

Hometown: Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Age: 44
Education: self-taught but studied with John Michael Carter & Phil Starke
Website: http://www.vptart.co

"Louisville Winter" by Valtcho Tonov, 20x24 in, oil on canvas (2017), $900 (not framed, finished sides) | BUY NOW

"Southern Horses" by Valtcho Tonov, 11x14 in, oil on linen panel (2016), $600 (comes in gold frame) | BUY NOW

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

Are you interested in being on Artebella? Click here to learn more.