“Sometimes it is a little better to travel than to arrive.” — Robert Pirsig

Location and maps are a crucial part of painter Jennifer Palmer’s work. “The first maps I collected were from my childhood and they were used on family trips. I loved that they were used on our trips and I could see my Dad’s handwritten notes and the highlighted route for each adventure. These memories have become even more precious since my Mother’s passing from cancer this past year.” Palmer is currently working on a new series involving plein air artworks created during road trips throughout Kentucky in a 1951 Chevy Pickup: http://palmertravelingartist.tumblr.com/

*"Paintings of Maine (In Progress)" by Jennifer Palmer, mixed media on poplar (2016)*

*1951 Chevy - Barbara Jane (Name after my Mother)*

Are you still touring Kentucky in your 1951 Chevy pick-up?

I currently am and the project is still in the beginning stages. I have spent the summer working on organizing my trip and scouting out locations to complete my artwork. This has allowed me the necessary time to come up with a more cohesive plan that has clear objectives and goals to make this a successful project. After my trip to Maine this summer I realized I wanted to challenge myself to something much larger than I had originally intended and to push myself creatively to use materials and process that I haven’t used before. This has slowed down the project, however, it has increased the drive to have a series that goes beyond what I had originally envisioned.

How many different places have you been?

Only a handful of places at this point and mostly I have been cruising routes and making notes on good places to stop and make some art. I feel I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the places to explore in this beautiful state. I have toured a lot of backroads in Kentucky cruising and I started to realize that I need to also include more urban areas on my travels.

"On site Traveling Drawing (Phippsburg, Maine)" by Jennifer Palmer, 9x12in, ink on paper (2016) — *"On site Traveling Drawing (Phippsburg, Maine)" by Jennifer Palmer, 9x12in,* *ink on paper (2016)*

What music do you listen to on the road?

I tend to just keep the windows down and listen to my surroundings and mostly the sound of the truck’s engine.

Do you listen to music while you paint?

I do and tend to listen to the same music over and over until I finish a series. You would most likely find Shovels and Rope and Roy Orbison in rotation in the studio.

What expectations did you have for the journey?

To stumble upon beauty in every place I visit.

Tell us something about the people you have met?

I have found that everyone enjoys sharing a story if you are willing to slow down and ask some questions and be sincere in wanting to hear what they have to say. The people I have encountered are the greatest resources on learning more about the areas I am visiting. They know the area and give out the best suggestions for places to see and also to eat. I have experienced that people always love sharing stories about their animals and that is a great way to start a conversation.

Also, I would like to add since I am still in the planning stages I would love to hear from people in Kentucky on places to go and more importantly why do they think I should visit there and document the space.

"Olsen House (Cushing Maine)" by Jennifer Palmer, photograph (2016) — *"Olsen House (Cushing Maine)" by Jennifer Palmer, photograph (2016)*

What's your favorite place to visit?

I will have to say Maine. I spent two weeks there this summer on an art road trip and I fell hard for the state. The landscape, the history, the people and the air were so inspiring. What made the trip memorable was visiting the Farnsworth Museum and seeing Andrew Wyeth’s work in person. It literally brought tears to my eyes. I was then able to make the journey to the Olsen House and spend time photographing the house and grounds. I have never felt such a connection with a place.

Honestly, this trip to Maine got me a little side tracked on the Traveling Artist Project here in Kentucky with the Chevy, however, it stirred a passion and desire to make it a more impactful series by slowing down and really taking time to plan out the project so I can create a wide range of pieces in various mediums. Kentucky holds the same charm and beauty and I want to explore the forgotten spaces to see the hidden gems myself and then be able to share these finds with an audience in a thoughtful manner.

*"Olsen House (Hidden Stories)" by Jennifer Palmer, photograph (2016)*

So far, what is the longest you spent in any one location?

I crave the chance to be nomadic however, my heart always belongs to one place and that is wherever my horses are located. That is what brought me to Kentucky 10 years ago and what keeps me appreciating this amazing state is all the open land that is still available here. So my journeys tend to be short in nature, however, the list is extensive on places I want to visit, even if it is only short term.

"Maine Summer" by Jennifer Palmer, 16x22.5in, mixed media on paper (2016), $300 | BUY NOW — *"Maine Summer" by Jennifer Palmer, 16x22.5in, mixed media on paper (2016), $300 | BUY NOW*

What's the most challenging part when starting on a piece of work?

To not worry about what the outcome will be and just create and be in the moment.

How long do you usually spend on a specific piece of art?

It varies and can be a few hours to months. Recently, I have been going over work I had in storage for a few years and remaking it into a new series. I strongly believe in including an element of history in my work and I am enjoying making something new out of pieces that I never felt were quite finished. It is nice to see new life given to them and also to go back and relive the time period of when I was creating them.

*"Travel Drawing Series (Maine)" by Jennifer Palmer, 9x12in, ink on paper (2016)*

Has your style changed or evolved over the years? If so what do you think influenced this?

It has and it goes through cycles. Location and time of year influences it, also the events going on in my life. The most significant change came with the passing of my Mother from pancreatic cancer. She was the inspiration in starting to live my life to the fullest and to finally get my dream truck, and then for this journey to gather stories. I realized how significant stories and personal histories are after you lose someone and they take the stories with them. If you don’t take the time to gather and archive them you will end up losing them forever. And now my work is more about searching out those feelings and memories and I am seeing a shift of including more figurative elements into my work as a way of processing these shifts in life.

If you could meet any celebrity who would it be and what would you ask them?

Wendell Berry and I would love to ask him to show me his favorite location in
Kentucky and learn more about why he chose that spot.

Name: Jennifer Palmer
Hometown: Simpsonville, Kentucky
Age: 35
Education: MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design; BA in Art and Political Science, Cedar Crest College (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Website: http://jenniferpalmer.tumblr.com

*"Summer Days (Finchville, KY) by Jennifer Palmer, photograph (2016)*

"Maine Traveling Sketchbook" by Jennifer Palmer, ink on paper (2016) — *"Maine Traveling Sketchbook" by Jennifer Palmer, ink on paper (2016)*

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Please contact josh@louisvillevisualart.org for further information on advertising through Artebella. — *Please contact* *josh@louisvillevisualart.org* *for further information on advertising through Artebella.*

Photography

Curatorial Spotlight: culturALLandscape

Josh Jenkins · September 27, 2016

"Art is part and parcel of a cumulative and collective enterprise, viewed as seen fit by the prevailing culture. It isn’t just the result of an unencumbered creative act. Everything that is seen and understood is part of a work and art is always a collaboration with all that came before you, that co-exists with you, and that comes after you." — Louise Lawler

Sarah Lyon, Steven Irwin, 2006, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in — Sarah Lyon, **Steven Irwin**, 2006, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in

Tom LeGoff, Matt, 2013, Inkjet Print — Tom LeGoff, **Matt**, 2013, Inkjet Print

The intersection of a geographic location and the culture it sustains is marked by how a physical place both supports and is reciprocally shaped by human involvement. Cultural landscape refers to the coalescence of a place with the people who inhabit it and encompasses works of art, narratives of culture, and expressions of regional identity tied to that specific place. Surveying the social and artistic topography of a place reveals aspects of its origins and development, as well as the interconnectivity of the relationships between the physical location, society and its structures.

The provenance of Louisville’s current cultural landscape can be accessed through the juxtaposition and alignment of the work of two photographers living and working in the city– one native and the other a recent transplant. The accompanying artworks unearth narratives about the area’s human geography- how a place and the people that produce creative output in that place serve as the bedrock of its vernacular landscape. The portraits shown here depict individuals who contribute to and enrich the area’s cultural terroir- affirming that the creative outpouring that takes place here is unique and incapable of being reproduced elsewhere. The individuals represented here may be preceded by their reputation. They may perhaps be more easily identifiable by the fruits of their creative labor - the artwork they create, music they produce, or performances they direct- than by their names or faces alone. But portrayed in and through their most valued environments, the resulting images reveal the virtues of the person depicted in equal measure with the backdrop against which they are situated.

Sarah Lyon, Natalie Sud, 2008, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in — Sarah Lyon, **Natalie Sud**, 2008, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in

Sarah Lyon originally viewed her photographic practice as a means through which she could experience her native city, as though she were an outsider exploring it for the first time. She began translating her personal relationships and experiences into an alternative way of mapping the city and its human and geographic landmarks. Out of this practice grew a portrait series that allows Lyon to become better acquainted with those who accompany her on these explorations, synthesizing them with their own personal environments.

The people with whom Lyon re-discovers her city are the figures who appear in her photographs. Consistently situated within a wide visual plane, the space and distance afforded to the figures facilitates an unimposing co- existence between the subject and the viewer. Allowing the viewer to soak in the totality of situational factors that shape the subject’s identity. Lyon’s photographs convey a sense of rootedness, giving prevalence to place and obscuring the distinction between whether the subject’s identity is informed by the impact they have on their locale, or the impact their locale has on them.

Tom LeGoff, Chris, 2015, Inkjet Print — Tom LeGoff, **Chris**, 2015, Inkjet Print

Tom LeGoff approaches his subjects as a self-proclaimed outsider, his portraits less burdened with history and interpretation. After re-locating to the area four years ago, he familiarized himself with the city by considering those who prominently occupy the landscape. LeGoff’s work magnifies the inherently ‘other’ quality that inevitably accompanies notoriety, imbuing his photographs with an elevated sense of intrigue as he casts his subjects in various roles, as though they were characters in a film noir. Yet, these oft-solicited and dramatized relationships still subtly convey reality. LeGoff intently concerns himself with the parts his subjects play in the locale he shares with them. Without pretense of familiarity, he offers viewers delicate contextual clues from which to deduce their identity, as illustrated in is his photograph, Chris (2015).

This image shows the portrait of an artist who uses the scale of her own body as the guiding principle in the production of her artwork. Using materials such as shards of glass and airy mesh boxes as representations of her own weight and volume, she examines how those constructed representations relate to and react with the environment around them. Photographed near her studio in the Portland neighborhood, LeGoff poses Chris standing at centurion attention. LeGoff references Chris’ own artistic study, arranging the composition so that her figure occupies the same amount of visual space in the composition as the first column in the row of interstate pylons receding into the horizon, reinforcing the relationship between her form and the environment in which her form exists.

Sarah Lyon, Jason Willar, 2005,  Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in — Sarah Lyon, ***Jason Willar***, 2005, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in

Though examined from different vantage points, Lyon and LeGoff both identify the terroir that characterizes the unique cultural landscape within which they have personally and professionally entrenched themselves. By documenting their creative counterparts, not merely as an act of preservation, but as a means of acknowledging and propagating the artistic talent with which they co-exist, both Lyon and LeGoff participate in a camaraderie that nurtures a thriving creative ecology that is cross- pollinated by both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’.

Tom LeGoff, Dean, 2013,  Inkjet Print — Tom LeGoff, **Dean**, 2013, Inkjet Print

Sarah Lyon, Kirby Coleman, 2005, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in — Sarah Lyon, **Kirby Coleman**, 2005, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in

Tom LeGoff, Mo, 2014, Inkjet Print — Tom LeGoff, Mo, 2014, Inkjet Print

Sarah Lyon, Mitchell and Matthew Barney, 2004, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in — Sarah Lyon, **Mitchell and Matthew Barney**, 2004, Archival Pigment Print, 40x40in

Tom LeGoff, Dario, 2015, Inkjet Print — Tom LeGoff, **Dario**, 2015, Inkjet Print

To contact these artists or to see more of their work, please visit
www.sarahlyon.com or www.tomlegoff.com

This Curatorial Spotlight was written by Jessica Bennett Kincaid.
Jessica Bennett Kincaid is currently the Exhibitions Assistant at the University of Louisville Hite Art Institute. Her curated exhibitions include “Hugh Haynie: The Art of Opinion” at the Frazier History Museum, "All of Bob Lockhart" at Louisville Visual Art’s Public Gallery, and most recently, “Joshua Watts- Resonant Disclosures at the Cressman Center for Visual Arts. She studied at the University of Louisville Hite Art Institute, University of Kentucky, Institut Catholique de Paris, and Santa Reparata International School of Art.

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Photography, Digital

Vignette: Micheal Reilly

Josh Jenkins · September 23, 2016

"Succulent #4" by Micheal Reilly, 32x40in, photography/digital art print (2015), $1500 | BUY NOW — *"Succulent #4" by* *Micheal Reilly, 32x40in, photography/digital art print (2015), $1500 | BUY NOW*

Micheal Reilly received his first camera at age six and was heavily influenced by his father, who was an avid photographer. After retiring from a career as a commercial photographer, Reilly now creates vivid, hyper-saturated digital images that begin with a simple photograph, but then are heavily manipulated through digital programs. He describes his work as “Abstract Organics” and all of his images are printed on 16-gauge aluminum using a dye sublimation process that perfectly mimics his vivid colors.

*"Blossom Stems #1" by Micheal Reilly, 32x40in, photography/digital art print (2015), $1500 | BUY NOW*

“My art is the expression of my soul. It is my illustrated vision, the world I see ... or want to see. I want to stretch your imagination, and I come as the naked stranger, exposing my inner feelings and urges, my lust for color, a mild insanity, and my happiness. Joy, I hope, is a primary response – and surprise. I think what I offer is new and unique. It’s me, the real me.” –Micheal Reilly’s Artist’s Statement

Reilly studied in Commercial Art at the University of Louisville, but within a few years, at the age of 24, he had started his own commercial photography studio. The rapid growth of his business enabled Reilly to travel the world creating advertising images for an estimable roster of clients, many of whom were Fortune 100. He was one of the pioneers introducing digital imaging into the commercial photography industry, was featured several times in the industry trade magazine, Photo District News, and was a frequent featured speaker at the International Photo Symposium in New York City.

Hometown: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Age: 59
Education: Self-taught in photography and art (starting at age 6)
Website: http://www.michealreilly.com

*"Purple Berries" by Micheal Reilly, 32x40in, photography/digital art print (2014), $1500 | BUY NOW*

*"Thistle #2" by Micheal Reilly, 40x32in, photography/digital art print (2015), $1500 | BUY NOW*

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