April 2017

COLOR & RHYTHM at the Taft Museum of Art

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in *, April 2017

COLOR & RHYTHM at the Taft Museum of Art

  Cincinnati Artist Cedric Michael Cox is exploring selected pieces from the collection of the Taft Museum of Art in his a new series of acrylics, entitled “Color & Rhythm” currently exhibited on site. The Taft Museum, a National historic landmark, was built about 1820 and is considered one of the finest examples of Federal […]

2nd Letter from Lebanon: Voices from the 32nd Salon d’Automne

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

2nd Letter from Lebanon: Voices from the 32nd Salon d'Automne

  Upon my recent return from Lebanon, I wrote a letter in the March aeqai in which I spoke of the prevailing creative energy I found there, a creative energy that permeates everyday life. In it I also gave a review of the art show “Sifr” by Lebano-Senegalese artist Hady Sy whose work focuses on […]

Nishiki Sugawara-Beda: Words Walking

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Nishiki Sugawara-Beda: Words Walking

Nishiki Sugawara-Beda uses painting to cultivate the visual power of written language as she examines the linguistic complexities of meaning. An avid traveler whose curiosity to explore the world began in her early twenties, she found that immersion in different cultures—from remote areas of Nepal to urban centers like Istanbul— became a major influence in […]

Sara Willadsen LESS GLOOM

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Sara Willadsen LESS GLOOM

Sara Willadsen’s Less Gloom opened at the Rockford University Art Gallery on March twentieth and closed on April twenty-second. I have admired Sara’s work from afar, through the byways of social media for some time now, and I just can’t stay away from it any more. I have admired the work without understanding it apparently. […]

Unique Vision Celebrated in Two Exhibitions: Otherwise: Keith Benjamin, Ben Clark, Richard Emry Nickolson at Thunder Sky Gallery Uncanny at Visionaries and Voices Gallery

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Unique Vision Celebrated in Two Exhibitions: Otherwise: Keith Benjamin, Ben Clark, Richard Emry Nickolson at Thunder Sky Gallery Uncanny at Visionaries and Voices Gallery

The story of the founding of the Raymond Thunder Sky Gallery and Visions and Voices Gallery, both in Northside, is as compelling as the art that is featured in these spaces. Keith Banner and Bill Ross are the founders of both galleries; both of whom are visionaries, humanitarians, social workers and tireless supporters of art […]

“Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light,” Cincinnati Art Museum, through August 13, 2017

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

“Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light,” Cincinnati Art Museum, through August 13, 2017

As an undergraduate studying art history in the late ’60s, I lusted after a Thonet rocker, which I pronounced “thon-it,” and a hanging Tiffany lamp. I imagined them in a book-lined room with a cat curled up on the rocker. But, as a student, I couldn’t afford even reproductions. At that time, work by Louis […]

Climax of the next scene, an Outsiders Exploration of Virtual Worlds

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Climax of the next scene, an Outsiders Exploration of Virtual Worlds

I’ve always had mixed feelings about video games. I am no gamer but I have spent my fair share of time crouched on the couch maneuvering cartoon characters on a track, adrenaline pumping and yelling obscenities at the screen. I’ve also sat near by and watched siblings, friends, and boyfriends spend hours speaking in what […]

The Enigmatic Visions of a Former Wine Merchant: Jean Dubuffet

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

The Enigmatic Visions of a Former Wine Merchant: Jean Dubuffet

What makes Jean Dubuffet’s art so captivating? Dubuffet Drawings, 1935-1962, which closed April 30 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, offered insight into elusive qualities that vivify his work. The rawness characterizing Dubuffet’s oeuvre is especially palpable in his drawings. This medium’s immediacy seems ideal for embodying his characteristic roughhewn aesthetic. “I must learn […]

Zephyr Gallery: Project 17: Ritual Geography

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Zephyr Gallery: Project 17: Ritual Geography

Zephyr Gallery has a twenty year history in Louisville, moving from location to location as the community needs and sees fit. Project 17: Ritual Geography is part of an ongoing project started in 2014 by Zephyr. Their ongoing Project series is made up of curated proposal-based exhibitions as well as collaborations with universities, colleges, and […]

Growing Pains and Revolution at the MFAH: Ron Mueck and “Adiós Utopia”

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Growing Pains and Revolution at the MFAH: Ron Mueck and “Adiós Utopia”

I can barely get through a day in Houston—and even international art websites—without seeing Ron Mueck’s sideways head. An alumnus of Jim Henson’s creature shop and fastidious creator, Mueck depicts his uncanny, dead-eyed figures as larger than life, whether they fill an entire room or stand two feet tall. The 13 sculptures exhibited at the […]

Puentes No Muros:  Bridges Not Walls

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Puentes No Muros:  Bridges Not Walls

Mi Casa es Su Casa – My home is your home – is a Spanish phrase that reflects recent efforts of local artists M. Katherine Hurley and Jens G. Rosenkrantz, Jr., who established a cultural exchange with artists in Cuba.  Now their theme has changed to Puentes No Muros – Bridges Not Walls – reflecting a […]

KMAC Couture: Art Walks the Runway; Louisville’s soiree into the couture fashion world

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

KMAC Couture: Art Walks the Runway; Louisville’s soiree into the couture fashion world

The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft has been a part of the Louisville arts community since 1989 (formally the Art and Craft Foundation). Since its opening at its current location in 2001, the KMAC has created exhibitions, educational, and academic programming for the community in which it is sited. The KMAC Couture Fashion Show […]

Say it with Fashion

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Say it with Fashion

Did she know? Did designer Maria Grazia Chiuri know that in late September, 2016 she would start the modern interpretation of the protest-by-tshirt trend? (reminder: nothing in fashion is every truly new.) Probably not. However Dior’s creative director, in her debut collection for the brand, did seem to be the first to tap into the […]

Tony Pinto Reignites His Practice through “Artist Seen” at Shoebox Projects

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Tony Pinto Reignites His Practice through “Artist Seen” at Shoebox Projects

Spearheaded by Kristine Schomaker, founder of Shoebox PR and Art and Cake, Shoebox Projects is a month-long residency program for Los Angeles-based artists. Not only does Shoebox Projects give visiting artists a space to work, but it offers the support of a thriving arts community, located at the Brewery Arts Complex, one of the world’s […]

Rachel Fischer LOW TIDE

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Rachel Fischer LOW TIDE

Rachel Fischer’s installation at Box 13 Art Space in Houston, in the Front Box, opened on the eighteenth of March and closed on the twenty-second of April. Oddly enough I was headed to Houston on the day of the closing reception and was somewhat dismayed to have missed it by a couple of hours. I […]

Fern Canyon: Paintings by Claire Sherman at the KMAC

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Fern Canyon: Paintings by Claire Sherman at the KMAC

The day that I visited the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts on Main Street, the sun was shining through their gigantic windows facing out onto Museum Row; and the museum was abuzz with people getting ready for the KMAC Couture Fashion Show. Claire Sherman’s work was being shown on the third floor gallery which […]

It Girl

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

It Girl

Depending on age and interest in popular culture, the term It Girl means different things to different people. To some it relates to the young starlets of today who seemingly go in and out of fashion as quickly as the release of a movie. For others though, the term brings to mind the ingénues of […]

Kate Carlson’s Running

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Kate Carlson’s “Running” is a beautifully sparely written, nearly minimalist, narrative about three young Western on the run in Athens, Greece. They are two men, who are gay, and one woman, all around twenty years old, one man from upper class England, who literally walks out of Eton one day, and meets up with a lower […]

Margaret Drabble’s The Dark Flood Rises

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Margaret Drabble is one of England’s finest novelists, along with her equally brilliant novelist sister, A. S. Byatt, although they don’t seem to speak to one another at all.  Somehow, having come to Byatt first, all of whose novels I’ve read and which astonish in their brilliance and quality, I seemed to believe it to be […]

Parisa Reza’s The Gardens of Consolation

May 6th, 2017  |  by  |  published in April 2017

Parisa Reza’s novel The Gardens of Consolation is one of the most beautifully written of the year to date.  The Iranian Reza examines the life of a young couple, newly betrothed (the woman is all of 12, the man many years her senior), living in an obscure town in the far Western part of Iran, nearly […]