Artists Talk with LVA: November 10, 2022

Stephen Jenkinson is a culture activist, worker, and author. He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work). He once headed the counseling team of Canada's largest home-based palliative care program. Working with hundreds of deaths, he witnessed a wretched anxiety that gathered around dying people and their families. He recognized this phobia as not just a personal issue but something that has its parallel in our modern cultures' climate-killing way of life. After leaving palliative care, Stephen published the book Die Wise (2015) about his time in the death trade. He began teaching extensively across North America, then around the world. A synchronistic encounter with Canadian musician Gregory Hoskins gave rise to an unlikely collaboration and the 'Nights of Grief and Mystery' tour was born. 

Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical/ tent show revival/ storytelling/ ceremony of a show across North America, U.K. and Europe and Australia and New Zealand. They released their Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017 and at the end of 2020, they released two new records; Dark Roads and Rough Gods.

Nights of Grief & Mystery - DUO - 2022 Tour will come to the Kentucky Country Day School Theatre in Louisville on November 18, 2022

Vignette: Barry Motes

"Annunciation" by Barry Motes, 30x40in, Oil on canvas, $1700 | BUY NOW

Barry Motes his studio.

In his best work, painter Barry Motes creates enigmatic tableau of surrealist scenes that seek to explain some aspect of human existence. Often there are suggestions of supernatural elements in the inscrutable narratives, and, in the titles, the artist solves whatever mystery the viewer may be experiencing: Motes is unabashedly a person of faith. 

When one views Water & Spirit with no understanding of the source in biblical text (Acts 8:38) what conclusions would be drawn? How important is the race of the human figure in the bathtub? That his head has been opened and filled with water seems an ominous and disturbing image, as will most deconstruction of the body in art; but what are we to make of the bird in the small opening that could hardly be called a window. Yet the surreal anxiety is leavened by Motes’ deliberate choices in color and the serene expression of the man. 

The use of parable in religious storytelling follows a long tradition, but Motes marries the morality to unorthodox juxtapositions of object and setting. He is also unafraid to inject nuance into the message, so that the ghostly image of the iconic Venus di Milo statue seen through the door of a strip club provocatively questions the viewer’s easiest assumptions. Although Motes explicitly uses his art to express Christian themes, he does not relinquish the artist’s less sacred but no less important mission to encourage, or even demand that the viewer be an active participant in the process by actively thinking. Such an exchange between artist and audience is the final link in the chain of insight and understanding that is the imperative value of art to any society.

"Water & Spirit"  by Barry Motes, 24x30in, oil on canvas, $900 | BUY NOW

Motes was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Xenia, Ohio. He is a Professor of Art at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky and resides in Prospect, Kentucky with his wife, Carla. Their two sons, Zach and Griff, are graduates of the University of Kentucky and both live in Lexington, KY.

If you wish to see Motes’ work first hand, his solo exhibit Sacred Stories, Wayside Expressions Gallery, Louisville, KY, continues through November 27, 2016. He will also have work in two upcoming solo shows at the Harvill Gallery, Customs House Museum in Clarksville, TN. December 1, 2016 -January1, 2017, and at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY January 18-February 24, 2017. His work will also be included in 58th Mid-States Art Exhibition, Evansville Museum in Evansville, IN, December 10, 2016 -March 5 2017

Hometown: San Diego, California
Educational: MFA in Painting/Drawing, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TNB.A. & MA degrees in Art, Morehead State University
Website: http://www.jbmotesart.com

"Supper at Yummaus" by Barry Motes, 36x48in, oil on canvas, $2400 | BUY NOW

"Midnight in the Garden" by Barry Motes,, 36x48in, oil on canvas, $2400 | BUY NOW

"Sibling Rivalry (Cain & Abel)" by Barry Motes, 30x40in, oil on canvas, $1700 | BUY NOW

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

Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2016 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

For information on how you can advertise through Artebella click here.