Artist Dan Rhema & Outsider Museum director Alex Huninghake came to the studio to discuss Dan's exhibit at Outsider and the nature of "outsider" art. Tune in to 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Alex Huninghake is the founder and director of Outsider Art Museum & Gallery. Located in the historic Portland neighborhood of Louisville, just blocks from the Portland Museum and LVA, Outsider is a new space dedicated to the celebration of creative Outsiders - visual artists, musicians, writers, and performers who create outside cultural norms, the mainstream, or the realm of “fine art.” Individuals from diverse backgrounds who express themselves with pure, direct, uninhibited vision.

Outsider Art may encompass the following categories: American Contemporary Folk Art, Self-Taught Art, Art Brut, Visionary Art, and Naive Art.

Dan Rhema became an artist after contracting dengue fever (break-bone fever) and spinal meningitis while managing Intercultural Training and Retreat Center in Santiago Tuxla, Mexico.

During his recuperation, Dan began to compulsively create multimedia collages, sculptures, and masks from found objects. He also began to paint, capturing the images flowing through him in a unique three-dimensional style.

Viewers of his paintings, sculptures, and masks began describing it as visionary art, outsider art, self-taught art, or shamanic art. Dan understood that these acts of creation were healing and re-creating him. He has taken this realization and made it the focus of his art; trauma can awaken creativity and, through creativity, healing can begin.

Public Radio

Artists Talk with LVA: March 21. 2024

Keith Waits · March 21, 2024

Valtcho Tonov is a mostly self-taught artist who was born in Bulgaria. He became seriously interested in art at the age of sixteen when his family relocated to Plovdiv.

After moving to the United States in 2001, he soon settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Valtcho 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.

A passionate Plein Air painter, he can be seen painting around Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, and Bulgaria. He is a member of the Plein Air Painters of KY. As a full time painter his repertoire includes landscapes, still life, abstract ,sporting and figurative. He draws inspiration from The Russian School - Repin, Serov, Fechin, etc. , and the American realist painters Sargent, Schmid, Hassam, and many others.

Public Radio

Artists Talk with LVA: October 5, 2023

Keith Waits · October 5, 2023

LVA will be featuring Tomisha Lovely-Allen in our booth at St.James Art Show and she is also our guest this week. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Tomisha Lovely-Allen is a self-taught artist from Louisville, KY. She has been a passionate creator for as long as she can remember. She earned a full scholarship at Northern Kentucky University and graduated with a Bachelor's in Accounting and Associate in Business Administration in 1998 and earned a Certified Public Accountant license in 2002.

She was chosen to illustrate a historic Kentuckian woman in the “Bluegrass Bold” children’s book project along with 35 other female artists, exhibit at the Arts Center of the Bluegrass Show “The Art of Being Black: Conversations and Experience,” and be grant recipient to the Fund for the Arts '“Black Artist Grant”.

Painting

Vignette: Macel Hamilton

Keith Waits · May 2, 2022

Macel Hamilton, “Love”, oil, 11in x 14in, 2021, NFS

By profession, Macel Hamilton has been a Registered Nurse for 34 years, but seven years ago she started teaching herself to draw, and within a year she was painting. A native of Beaver, located in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, her simple portrait work captures a rural sensibility. Whether through technique - Hamilton favors natural lighting and has a knack for capturing it - or subject - each portrait is of a family member or close friend - the artist expresses the prosaic existence of the Appalachian region.

“My main goal with my art is to improve and learn. I really enjoy my art when I feel like I am learning and improving.”

Macel Hamilton, “Uncle”, oil, 11in x 14in, 2021, NFS

Not that the inspiration is the cliche of rural unsophistication. In “Husband”, Hamilton paints a spouse who was a professional studio musician for over 50 years with Capitol Records, working with many famous musicians in the 1960s, and an “Uncle” who was an Old Regular Baptist preacher in Eastern Kentucky. The focused energy present just before he begins a sermon is palpable.

Hamilton’s gift for rendering people with such unsparing realism doesn’t prevent her from capturing their humanity, it elevates it. There is empathy in the exploration of every hair and wrinkle in the flesh, and great warmth injected into the details. With “Love’, the deep connection between a middle-aged man and his aging father acknowledges the complicated emotions in familial relationships while hinting at the pain of witnessing the passing of generations. In 2021 “Love” was exhibited for six months in the Kentucky Capitol as a part of the Team Kentucky Gallery.

SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE IMAGES

Macel Hamilton, “Husband”, oil, 16in x 20in, 2020, NFS

Macel Hamilton, “Old Rusted Lock”, watercolor on paper, 16in x 20in, NFS

Macel Hamilton, “Life Is Good”, acrylic, 16in x 20in, 2019, NFS

Written by Keith Waits

self-taught artists

Artists Talk with LVA: August 22, 2024