Artists Talk With LVA: June 2, 2022

Reflections on Twelve Years: An LVA Exhibit for Metro Hall Curated by Keith Waits and Jonathan Cherry runs now through December 2022. It includes work from Carlos Gamez de Francisco, Ewa Perz, Jon Cherry, Destiny Jackson, Metro Communications Office, and The Polaroid Project from the Tyler Gerth Foundation and Louisville Urban League

Carlos Gamez de Francisco was born in post-revolutionary Cuba in 1987, to a Cuban-Spanish mother and a Cuban-American father. He grew up in Cuba and was educated in an academic style heavily influenced by the Russian Academy.  At age five, he determined, with absolute certainty, that he would be an artist. By the time he was fifteen, Gamez de Francisco was diligently painting 8 hours a day, every day. Today, he often spends 15 hours a day painting and feels “very blessed to do what I love.”

Highly awarded and exhibited, some of Carlos’ numerous awards include Fine Art Photographer of the Year, 2020, Moscow International Photo Awards, Moscow, Russia, Gold Award, 2020 Tokyo International Foto Awards, Tokyo, Japan, “Dreammakers” Artist in Residence at the Muhammad Museum, the Distinguished Scholarship from the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Guild Purchase Award from Evansville Museum. He have had solo shows at 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and Bentonville, Arkansas, Monica Graham Fine Art in Carmel, CA, Miller Gallery in Cincinnati, OH, Portland Art Gallery in Portland, ME, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in Miami, Florida, The Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Colonial Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba. His work has been exhibited at Art Market San Francisco (2022), Scope-Art Basel, Miami (2021 and 2012), Art Palm Beach (2014), Art Southampton, New York (2015), and Context Art Miami (2016).

Ewa Perz was born in Gdansk, Poland. There she received a masters degree in biology, but found her true passion to be in fine art. She left her job as a scientist to pursue her desire to create art. Living in Europe and Latin America before coming to the United States, paired with worldwide travel and taking classes with contemporary masters (Felo Garcia in Costa Rica, David Laffel in Santa Fe), allow Ewa an extensive visual approach to her paintings. Global cultures, styles and trends strongly influence her choices in themes. Ordinary shapes and colors are manipulated by Ewa’s expressive realism into breathtaking compositions. Her works are unique and compelling.

Currently, Ewa lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Her works can be found in many private and corporate collections throughout the United States and Europe.

Jonathan Cherry is a stringer with Getty Images and The New York Times and has been published independently by The New York Times, Sierra, TIME Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, New York Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and others.

Recently, it was announced that he had been chosen for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photographer as part of the Getty Images team sent to Washington DC on January 6, 2022.

Artists Talk With LVA: May 26, 2022

This week Skylar Smith, Letitia Quesenberry, Gibbs Rounsavall, & Martin Benson talk about how their work communicates together in Not A Certainty But A Circumstance at Quappi Projects. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk With LVA.

Skylar Smith is an artist, curator, and educator. Her work deals with micro and macro perceptions of the natural world, and human-scale politics that influence perception.

Smith’s work has been exhibited regionally and internationally, including at Sanskriti Kendra Foundation, New Delhi, India; and at the Sanbarbh Residency, Partapur, India. She has completed Artist Residencies in India at Sanskriti Kendra and Sanbarbh Residency; and Colegio Trener, an elementary school in Lima, Peru. 

In 2020 Smith curated BallotBox, a contemporary art exhibition examining past and present voting rights with support from Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville Metro, Louisville Visual Art, and Great Meadows Foundation. BallotBox was on display in Louisville Metro Hall and at 21c Museum Louisville through March 2021. 

Letitia Quesenberry lives and works in Louisville Kentucky. Through the play of material, process, surface and technology, Quesenberry creates hypnotic objects that extend the boundaries of visual perception. Her bright amalgamations contain layers of vibratory and translucent elements: color correction film, tinted resin, mica dust, coal slag, sanded plexiglass, fluorescent paint, LEDs. She tempers the impulse to understand her work conclusively by focusing on visibility, bewilderment, and the desire to celebrate uncertainty.

Gibbs Rounsavall is a Louisville-based geometric abstract painter who was featured as one of 13 artists in Louisville Magazine’s, “13 Artists You Need to Know Now” issue. 

 His work has been included in academic presentations on subjects from abstract art to urban climate change. He has appeared in print, radio, and online interviews and feature articles. He has been invited as a guest artist to speak at events for arts organizations and academic settings. Most recently in 2017, he spoke on the subject of Serendipity for the Creative Mornings monthly lecture series titled, “How to Become a Serendipitous Learner.”

Martin L. Benson’s exploration of the healing power of art has its roots in personal experience. Born in Georgia and raised in Kentucky, Benson’s college education was temporarily interrupted when he became seriously ill and had to return home. “[That experience] opened up my world to my spirituality, which fostered a healthier relationship with myself and the world,” says Benson.

Benson’s hunger for greater understanding and meaning led him to the ancient science of Sacred Geometry –  the geometry used in the design of religious structures, sacred places, and religious art – and to the mathematical underpinnings of the cosmos. “Math’s universal language transcends linguistics, symbolism, and mythology, while at the same time remaining strongly connected to it,” says Benson. “Its inherent principles indicate the thumbprint of the creator.”

Not a Certainty But a Circumstance: April 29 - June 4
Letitia Quesenberry, Gibbs Rounsavall, Skylar Smith, & Martin Benson

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Artists Talk With LVA: May 19, 2022

Teri Dryden & Andrew Preston are both opening new exhibits on May 21 and came together to talk about it with us. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Teri Dryden is a Louisville, Kentucky-based artist, having moved here from Los Angeles following a career in theater and performance. A fiber artist for several years, she eventually became an abstract painter and collage artist.

She is a member of the Collage Artists of America, National Collage Society, and Women Painters West. Her work is included in many private and public collections and has been exhibited in numerous solo, group, and juried exhibitions across the U.S. Her solo show, And We Floated On Home, opens at WheelHouse Art on May 21.

Andrew Preston is the owner/manager of Preston Art Center, a locally owned family business since 1941. But he is also an artist who will be exhibiting his most recent work in Putting the Bling in Marbling to be shown at Preston Art Center’s Jeffersonville location also beginning May 21.

Artists Talk With LVA: May 12, 2022

Sarah Battle has been researching Louisville-born artist Kenneth Victor Young & the Louisville Black Artists Renaissance of the mid-20th century. She tells us all about it this week on Artists Talk with LVA. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am.

Sarah Battle works in the education division at the National Gallery of Art and also researches Washington Color School artist Kenneth Victor Young. Sarah has spent much of the last few months on sabbatical to better understand Young's formative years as a painter in Louisville through an oral history project. This project aims to document the mid-century Black art scene in Louisville, KY. The oral history project is made possible thanks to the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Kentucky Oral History Commission, and the University of Louisville.

On May 6 she presented her current research on Washington Color School artist Kenneth Young at the 2022 DC History Conference organized by the DC History Center and DC Public Library !

Artists Talk With LVA: May 5, 2022

[In]Fertility is a new play with music premiering May 12, 13, & 14 at The Mex Theatre in Kentucky Performing Arts.

Margaret Miller is a writer from Texas. She received her BFA in Theatre from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and her MFA in Playwriting from Trinity College Dublin. Her radio play “Nothing and No One Go To The Moon” was featured on RTE Radio Drama. She co-wrote the documentary “Dress A Cow” which premiered at South By Southwest 2022. Her short film “Animal” is in post-production in Los Angeles. She lives in Louisville with her husband, Stephen, and her dog, Rosie.

Heather Summers is a singer, songwriter, and folk musician from Louisville, Kentucky. She grew up with her grandpa on a houseboat at Dale Hollow Lake and with her adopted family in Columbia, Kentucky. Her songs often feature lyrical content from these inspiring times in her life. Storytelling through her song, she takes her listener by the hand, where they may find themselves walking down a wooded path by a winding stream and blooming bluebells.

Martin French is from Ireland and has worked in theatre for many years, covering a wide variety of positions. By trade a designer, and by preference a director, Martin has worked professionally in theatre for over 20 years in Dublin, London, and Louisville, where he is the Co-founder & Co-Artistic Director of The Chamber Theatre. He has been an artistic director with Ourclann and Dublin Shakespeare in Ireland, and in Louisville has previously been on the board of The Alley Theatre.

Some highlights of his directing work include The Bloomsday Breakfast Show, Elektra, Busu, Electile Dysfunction, Metamorphosis, and Chek-Mate.

The Trestle At Pope Lick Creek by Naomi Wallace runs May 12-15 at Carbon Copy Gallery at  1212 S 4th St.,