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Schneider Hall and Cressman Center Galleries

The University of Louisville Schneider Hall and Cressman Center Galleries are invested in keeping you safe when you visit. Please follow our policies to ensure the safety of all our guests, students, faculty and staff when visiting. 

Schneider Hall Galleries: Schneider Hall, University of Louisville
Exhibition: Spring 2024 BFA Thesis Exhibition
April 18-May 8, 2024
Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-4:30 pm 
Note: The Schneider Hall Galleries will be closed May 13-August 23, 2024

The Cressman Center: 100 E Main St. Louisville, KY 40202
Exhibition: MFA Graduates Exhibition (upcoming)
May 17-July 3, 2024

Please Note: Gallery Hours are subject to change. Galleries are closed in between exhibitions for installation, and during university breaks and holidays. For Updates on Exhibitions and Events, join our mailing list

Every Spring our graduating BFA Interior Design Students present their final portfolios in a day-long event to celebrate with family and friends and to present their work to regional professionals. This year the portfolio day is being presented online! Below find a list of this year's students. You can see a digital showcase of their portfolios Here and find individual portfolios Here.

2020 Interior Design graduates: Katie Bryant, Janice Chen, Megan Cox, Lars Coleman, Riley Kerber, Abigail McLemore, Kristin Merges, Caitlin Thomas, Shelby Sills, Jenna Voet, and Brittany West.

Select an image to be re-directed to the candidate's personal website:

BFA Graphic Design Portfolio Day

Friday, April 26, 2024

8:30 a.m. – noon

Portland MFA Building, 1616 Rowan Street

Years of study, hard work and creativity culminate for this special showcase by our graduating BFA graphic design majors. The event kicks off with a review and critique of seniors’ portfolios by local and regional graphic design professionals, followed at 9:45 a.m. by a reception, awards ceremony and open-to-the-public exhibition of the students’ work.  

Sponsored by 

With scholarship and awards support from: the estate of Michael L. Power and The Power Agency, Dan and Kate Stewart, and Welch Printing

After initially presenting their work digitally due to COVID-19, we are pleased to announce that a selection of BFA students now have their artwork live and ready to be viewed in our Schneider Hall Galleries! Reservations are required to view the exhibition. Please view our updated gallery visitation policies and make a reservation Here.

You can also scroll below to see the digital exhibition, or select one of our candidates to jump to their work!

Candidates: Sara Coleman, David Conrad, Mackenzie Dennison, Michael Gorman, Maree Grosser, Catherine Hale, L.P. Hewitt, Samantha Ingram, Sarah McArter, Bailey O'Leary, Jillian M. Simpson, Terion Thomas, Lucas Wells, and Rachel Wiley. 

Sara Coleman

I work in the quiet and contemplative space of my home to capture ephemeral light, which is present for a certain amount of time and then is gone. My goal, in part, is to immerse myself in the act of looking and to reconsider (even my own) expectations of perspective. I want to make my viewers aware of their own interest in looking, instead of losing their attention to thoughts about what it is that they are looking at. I am surrounded by light in my home. Light moves through every room of the house throughout the day and night. I move away from photographic narratives and consider perspective both physically and metaphorically. I engage the notion of photographic environment rather than photographic subject. The grid format of my home’s tiled floor provides a way for me to invite viewers to examine each segment of my composition for detail. In this way, even grains of dirt have the potential to hold visual significance. I would like for my audience to consider their personal gaze by looking at my work from an experiential distance as well from a more logical and detailed point of view.

David Conrad

Mixed-media abstract assemblages address the tension of adapted temporary shelters and marginalized struggle by exploring an exodus from a negative, violent situation to a place of hope and growth. As the vulnerability of those experiencing homelessness intensify during a pandemic, so does a greater divide in housing insecurity, the availability of proper mental health services, and financial resources. This body of work questions the extent of an artist’s moral obligation to those seen as excluded or disposable. Personal experience with estrangement, homelessness, and homeless encampments lead this intuitively improvised practice to show contingent markers of raw urgency and mistakes. Formal concerns of materiality of paint and surface expand the field of painting beyond the second dimension, thus addressing the limited support structures available to the lesser advantaged. Quickly applied splashed paint onto temporary flimsy barriers display a provisional protective layer. Discarded construction materials and tarpaulin are covered with viscous neutral house paint, interlocking perspective lines, along with blue and orange pigment, each with their own set of associations. Remaining palimpsests of scraped-off, wiped-away layers explore entropy, self-sabotage, and disintegration.

See more from David at his website davidbconrad.com or on Instagram @dvdc

Images from left to right: 
Untitled 2207, 2019, acrylic and mixed media on tarpaulin, 30" x 48"
Untitled 2214, 2019, acrylic and mixed media on tarpaulin, 48" x 60"
Untitled 2401, 2020, acrylic on tarpaulin, 28" x 36"
Untitled 2411, 2020, acrylic on canvas and tarpaulin with gypsum board, 24" x 32"
Untitled 2501, acrylic on canvases, 60" x 64"
Untitled 2198, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 48" x 58" 

Mackenzie Dennison

Skin Studies focuses on the elasticity and resiliency of different skin types and body builds. I am drawn to the subject of skin because it is a protector of internal systems and is a part of each persons’ identity. I find inspiration in people and their bodies because each is unique. My oil paintings are presented in the order that I created them, which allows the viewer to see the work’s progression as I study and become more familiar with each figure. I use a warm yellow and cool blue light to illuminate my subjects and to create an interesting effect that assists in showing the curve and three dimensionality of the skin. I want my paintings to provoke viewers to look at skin in a new way.

See more of Mackenzie's work on her Instagram @kenzinkartist

Images 1-6:Skin Study 1-6, 2020,  Oil on canvas
Image 7: Skin Study Tryptic, 2020, Oil on canvas
Image 8: Detail of Skin Study Tryptic 
Image 9: Skin Study 7, 2020, Oil on canvas 

Michael Gorman

My work concerns human interactions with animal life. Human actions have damaged the environment and increased the rate of extinction to more than a thousand times the natural rate. However, this change has happened so gradually that we have become blind to it, or we choose to believe that our individual actions mean little considering the scale of the challenges. 

Our alleyways are filled with materials that are imbued with our lived lives, and this makes them open to interpretation. My work creates pathways of dialogue into issues that are not always seen as problems. I draw in the viewer by creating playful and intimate pieces representative of animal life by utilizing post-consumer materials. The viewer becomes an investigator solving various puzzles, such as “what is this creature?” What is it made out of?” “How did it come to be?” And “what does it mean?” Through their curiosity I want viewers to understand the absurdity of mass extinction, and to grasp the tragic fact that animals that once populated our world are being replaced by our waste. 

For more from Michael check out his website: www.michaelagorman.com or follow him on Instagram @michael_gorman

Images
1-3: Michael Gorman, A Horse of Course?, 2018, Counter Top, Stool legs, shoe, wire, rope and screws.  45”x14”x36”
4-6: Scorched 2020. burlap, wire, steel rod. (Base) steel sheet metal.  6”x29”x15” (base) 22.5”x29.5”
7-9: Stampede 2019, Chrome chair frame, lawn mower handle, electrical cord, wire and glue. 38”x18”x26"

Maree Grosser

This work investigates loss and mourning by exploring the temporality and fragility of memories and relationships with people no longer on earth. I address the paradox of mourning: the impossibility of and pressure to move on. My experience is used as a framework for my audience to reflect on their personal encounters with loss. Through this environment the audience is invited to consider and talk about their experiences of death, and to reflect on how time changes these experiences. My work intends to provide an outlet to explore the social norm of avoiding such subjects.

The cloak is a visual representation of my ongoing relationship with my mother. As the memory of her fades, it takes continuous work, intentional thought, and physical reminders for me to hold to on her.  In Victorian society flowers and herbs were used symbolically to convey things society deemed unacceptable to express. Rosemary in particular had a symbolic meaning of remembrance. By hand cutting and knotting sprigs of rosemary to the cloak, I am materializing the memories I still have of my mother. The labor and constant maintenance required to repair the cloak as it is worn is symbolic of the effort of holding on to a memory. This cyclical ritual of wearing and mending is futile, but I persist.

This work relates to the cycles of life and death we experience throughout our lives. Grief is not a singular solitary occurrence; it is something we experience as we lose people throughout our lives. We then must learn to rebuild ourselves and move forward while simultaneously accepting that this is also our own fate. Like a spider rebuilds its web, we too must work to understand our elusory relationship with life and death. The creation of handmade spider webs in the gallery is another way of rebuilding after loss. Like most, my relationship with life and death is delicate and intricate. Its beauty is hard to see due to the difficulty of looking past the fear. The objects I have made, however, will always be there.

See more of Maree's work on her website: https://mareegrosser.squarespace.com or follow her on Instagram @mareegrosser

Maree Grosser, To Remember You (Rosemary), 03/03/2020, fiber/mixed media installation

Catherine Hale

The world is burning. It is an undeniable fact that the climate is changing and with it the environment is disappearing. The vacations we took as children and the landscapes our predecessors saw as their playground will soon cease to exist. It is not possible for us to sit in silence while entire ecosystems are wiped out. Now is the time for us to take action. My goal is to encourage my viewers to examine their habits and the greater impact that they have on the world around them, and more importantly, to motivate them to call their state representatives and demand that they put policies in place that can stop corporations from doing more damage. 

Drypoint is a historical method of printing that is short lived. I make small scratches in copper plates that produce elevated burrs. Each time the plate is printed it is re-inked and the process is repeated in an identical fashion. The more times the image is printed, the less clearly the copper will transfer the image onto the paper. This is because the pressure from the press smooths out the burrs. In this work I want to show the deterioration of this copper matrix to tell the story of our dying planet and to call my viewers to action. 

Due to the 2020 pandemic, I lost access to a printing press mid-way through my thesis. I was determined, however, to finish the work by hand. There is more variation in the quality of each print produced. It altered the rate at which the plate deteriorated, but this alteration serves to mirror the economic and manufacturing pause that was caused by the virus—a pause that has given the earth a much-needed break. It is no longer debatable whether or not humans are hurting the environment. Let us use this as more incentive to protect our planet. We can fix this and we must.

See more from Catherine on Instagram @catheronie

Image: Catherine Hale, Wasteland, Baby!, 2020, drypoint etching on cotton 12' x 3'
Images two and three: Print #1 and #60 

L.P. Hewitt

My work uses fantastic imagery in conjunction with narrative poetry in order to tell stories about our relationship to the monstrous, and to probe the various truths of our human condition that these relationships reveal. I use the compositional structure of comic books and graphic novels for their form of visual storytelling, and how conducive they are to the written word. In Western literature and film, monsters have been used to confront the intricacies of our fear and pain and examine how we perceive reality. They facilitate stories that are used to explore larger questions of life, the welfare of humanity, or aspects of the occult and the unknown. Within my own work I aim to impose similar questions, using monsters and instances of experience to generate meaning. My paintings contain an original set of reoccurring characters that signify pieces of my identity. In this way, my work produces a narrative surrounding experiences of mental health, disability, and gender identity. The image of the monster is used to act out conflicts of the subconscious and dissect instances of discrimination.

Fore more from L.P. visit her Instagram @lphewittart 

Images: L.P. Hewitt, Portal Series, Panels 1-23, 2019-2020, acrylic on panel

Samantha Ingram

In this series of photos I portrayed myself through the five stages of grief, recreating certain moments of my life. I chose the stages of grief because we as humans all experience grieving and the emotions that come along with it at some point. By using my personal experiences and allowing myself be vulnerable I connect to the audience on an emotional level—perhaps even connecting to emotions that audience members hide from themselves. I use digital photography because it allows for more vibrancy and contrast in the final edit. It also allows for more photos to be taken to capture the visual representation of the emotion that I recreate. 

The portraits are larger than life and floating off the wall to force the viewer to experience the emotion they are seeing portrayed and to bring a sense of confrontation along with it. Emotion here is front and center, which the viewer encounters face to face in these large photos. There is no border because I did not want to take away from the confrontational aspect of these portraits. The reflectiveness of the prints gives somewhat of a similar feel to what we experience from the screens on our phones and laptops, which people use to hide their emotions behind pictures and posts of their seemingly perfect life. 

See more from Samantha on Instagram @samingramphotos

Samantha Ingram, Stages of Grief, 2020, Digital Photographs

Sarah McArter

Sisters challenges historical portraiture by employing traditional techniques in nontraditional representations. Inspired by the models’ responses, each portrait is paralleled with an abstracted emotive depiction. Sisters reveals raw, awkward realities and layered naturalism through referencing candid photography and historic techniques such as glazing and scumbling. Using gestures and facial expressions, each subject sends a non-verbal signal for how she wants to be perceived. Each movement can be explored as an archetypal construct and fulfilling a specific role. Through the use of proximity and visual cues, Sisterschallenges the audience to draw connections between each pictorial portrayal and its abstract counterpart.

Sarah McArter, Sisters Series, 2020, oil on canvas, 24" x 20" each

Bailey O'Leary

Vulnerability is an integral part of the human condition, yet it is often stigmatized and deemed a weakness. People who allow themselves to be vulnerable are often those who are most content or happy with their lives because these people are often the most confident and at ease. The stigmatization of vulnerability is thus due to fear of isolation, rejection, and judgement. Overall, humans want to belong and are therefore willing to attempt to numb socially unacceptable emotions.

My work provides a vacillation between voluntary and involuntary vulnerability. Each installation is a reference to sixteenth-century Dutch vanitas paintings, which symbolize the transience of life and inevitability of death. Likewise, my work represents the inevitability and necessity of vulnerability. However, rather than utilizing decadent décor in my installations, I include everyday objects more likely to be found in a modern-day home so that my work is familiar to the contemporary viewer.

Each piece is dimly lit in order to provide a comforting, idyllic atmosphere, allowing the viewer a sense of privacy and peace. As the viewer sits down, they notice the food on the table is rotting, which provides a moment of quiet disruption. However, the majority of the decaying food smells pungent and sweet, offering a reconciliation to the previous state of unease in the work. Each space is seated for one person, rather than multiple, in order to further reconcile the work with a quiet intimacy. As the viewer fluctuates between comfort and unease, my work provides a space that is exclusive to them in that moment. Rather than to further isolate the act of vulnerability, my work expands the experience to public grounds (the exhibition space), which provides an acknowledgment and acceptance of the experience.

For more from Bailey you can visit her website: www.baileyoleary.weebly.com or check her out on Instagram: @baileyoleary97

 Images: Bailey O'Leary, Euphoric Dissonance, Installation. 

Jillian M. Simpson

My subject has revolved around the realistic representation of fabric while creating drama through lighting.  Since I was a kid I have found fabric to be enchanting because of the complexity and mystery in the folds of the cloth. The blankets on my bed were the landscape for my toys, from rolling hills and sandy dunes, to dark ominous caverns. As an adult I am fascinated by the magical potential of the transformation of something mundane into something more. The shadows express the depth and volume of the folds, while the light applied dramatizes the peaks and angles. There is movement and mood and drama.

I use oil paint medium on traditional stretched canvas as well as wood panels cut with a laser to achieve a combination of right angle edges and the organic curves of the fabric. I arrange the material by both letting it drape naturally as well as manipulating it to create purposeful shapes that I find intriguing. Once the fabric is in place I place direct lights in various colors, usually red and blue, on the still life to create dramatic effect. 

Images from left to right: 
Row 1: Jillian M. Simpson, Purple on Leather 2019; Girly Vomit, 2020; Geode on Burgundy, 2019; Fabric Study in Blue, 2019, Oil on canvas, 10" x 10" each and Blue on White Velvet, 2019, Oil on canvas, 4" x 4"
Row 2: Fabric Study in Red and Blue, 2020, Oil on Masonite, 46" x 22" and Purple on Velvet, 2019, Oil on canvas.

Terion Thomas

The term Ephemerality is rooted in the Greek word ephemeros, which translates to “lasting one day”. It is the concept of something that briefly exists; usually things that are in nature. Ephemerality presents a series of solar photograms known as “Lumen Prints,” and each print has a Rose Mallow Hibiscus flower as the subject. A photogram is a photographic process that involves placing an object between light sensitive paper and a light source, and in this case the artist uses the sun as her source of light. 

Hibiscus flowers were initially used as an experimental subject for this process, but they ended up becoming an essential muse after the artist discovered how they reacted to the paper and the sun. It was found that the more they decomposed on the paper the more abstract the image became, so much so that the bacteria began to eat away at the emulsion of the paper and turns it white. Ephemerality captures the beauty and grace of the hibiscus flower in a moment of its decomposition. In the process, these works immortalize the flowers as they literally die on the paper.

For more from Terion check out her Instagram: @iamterion

Images: From left to right:
Row 1: Rose Mallow Dance, 11" x 14", Untitled 8" x 10", Chrysalis Hibisceae, 11" x 14", Rose Mallow Dance II, 8" x 10" and Hibisceae Drift, 11" x 14",  Lumen prints on expired paper,  2019    
Row 2: Untitled, Icarus, Untitled, Untitled, Untitled, Untitled, Lumen Prints on expired paper, 11" x 14" each, 2019              

Lucas Wells

Abandoned structures can provoke a broad range of emotions. We look up at these towering, desolate buildings and experience fear, nostalgia, excitement, and occasionally a compulsive desire to explore their decaying interiors. Amid these inescapable, visceral feelings, a question forms in the back of our minds: at what point do humans draw the line of disposability? From empty cans and old ink pens to entire shopping malls and sanatoriums, there seems no limit to dispensability.

Executed with notoriously disposable ballpoint pens, this body of work functions as a means to travel to some of these once-maintained locations. Ultimately, by exploring these vacant settings, my work seeks to arouse the same emotions associated with structural disposability and to search for an answer as to why—in a world being obliterated by waste—humans can so hastily relinquish what used to be loved.

 Images from left to right: Lucas Wells, Abandonment I, Abandonment II, Abandonment III, Abandonment V and Abandonment IV, 2020, ballpoint pen on paper. 

Rachel Wiley

In my series, “Love, Grandma,” staged self-portraiture serves as a way to explore mental illness. I put myself in the shoes of my late grandmother, recreating scenes that she described or did while having schizophrenic episodes. I focus primarily on gesture, symbols, and lighting as methods to convey ambiguous narratives. My attempts to explore her perspective has allowed me to consider notions of personal space, identity, and the connection, or lack thereof, between an individual to their surrounding world in a way that is both honest and theatrical.

By creating scenes in low light I aim to tackle the darkness that mental illness can create in an individual; clarity appears doubtful while obscurity reigns as certain. My grandmother possessed a completely different perception of reality, hence I display my photographs in an unconventional manner. By suspending and angling my photographs, versus securing them flat against the wall, I present an uncomfortable yet accessible viewing platform in a“suspended reality.” Through the use of writing I have been able to better understand her perspective. In my work this appears in handwriting on the back of my photographs, a convention one might observe on any personal keepsake photo. The words are written in the first-person from a seemingly rational point of view, as I have become the subject who is trying to demonstrate an empathetic viewpoint. The peculiarity of the scene combined with the written phrases are intended to be simultaneously acceptable and upsetting. I want my narratives to remain open-ended, therefore, it is important for me to pay close attention to the recognizable and universal.

Painter Peter Williams was scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated artist talk at the Cressman Center for Visual Arts on March 20^th. Unfortunately the pandemic, and calls for social distancing, struck Kentucky before he arrived. Nevertheless, the show must go on, and so Williams and curator Chris Reitz staged a remote conversation, recorded here and presented in dialogue with video of the work. Join us online as the artist and curator walk through the gallery and discuss Williams’ art, his artistic development, and his thoughts on the exhibition’s theme: Incarceration. 

Peter Williams Bio:
Peter Williams lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and is Senior Professor in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Delaware. In 2018 Williams was inducted into the National Academy of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2018), Joan Mitchell Award (2004 and 2007), Ford Foundation Fellowship (1985 and 1987), and McKnight Foundation Fellowship (1983). His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Delaware Art Museum, Davis Museum of Art at Wellesley College, Howard University in Washington DC. Williams’ recent exhibitions include Black Universe (2020), MOCAD, Detroit, MI; Men of Steel, Women of Wonder (2019), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; River of Styx (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; With So Little To Be Sure Of (2018), CUE Art Foundation, New York; Soul Recordings (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Prospect.4: The Lotus In Spite Of The Swamp (2017-18), Prospect Triennial, New Orleans, LA; Dark Humor: Peter Williams (2017).

Chris Reitz Bio
Chris Reitz is Assistant Professor of Critical and Curatorial Studies and Gallery Director at the Hite Art Institute. His research focuses on transnational practices in art and exhibitions of the past 30 years, with a particular emphasis on art and the art market in the era of neoliberalism. Professor Reitz has worked as a project manager at Public Art Fund in New York and as an independent curator. His most recent writing has appeared in October, Texte zur Kunst, N+1, The White Review, Paper Monument, The Baffler, and Martin Kippenberger’s Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings. His first book project, currently underway, offers an analysis of Martin Kippenberger’s work in the context of the emerging neoliberal art market. Professor Reitz serves as the Hite Art Institute’s primary curator, and in that capacity has organized solo exhibitions for Judy Chicago, Sanford Biggers, Sislej Xhafa, and For Freedoms, in addition to the group exhibition, Painting in the Network, Algorithm and Appropriation, which featured work by Gabriel Orozco, Cory Arcangel, Tabor Robak, Davis Rhodes, Laeh Glenn, and Siebren Versteeg.

Zed Saeed: American Nocturne
MFA Thesis Exhibition

Photography has historically borne the burden of being a mechanical art, where a button is pressed to make an image, seemingly requiring no skill. In an effort to create art, early photographers took their inspiration from the legacy of painting. They borrowed traditional subjects of classical artworks, intentionally created soft images, and even added brush strokes to imbue the idea of art into a photograph. 

The movement of straight photography emerged during the modernist period, which began in the late 1920’s. Modernism was devoted to finding the essence of any medium. Straight photographers leveraged what they felt were the inherent properties of photography: the ability to produce clear, sharply-focused images, with a deep depth of field. They eschewed any self-conscious compositions or affectations. One of the earliest straight photographers of the modernist era was Eugene Atgét, who created over 10,000 views of Paris over 35 years with his large-format camera.

 The tradition of American straight photography includes names like Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and Berenice Abbott. This period also defined the start of American photography with its concerns for local subject matter, and was done in a style that was direct, and much more unadorned than that of the avant-garde, which was the trend in Europe at the time. American straight photographers were captivated by the emerging urban settings of their country. Their focus was the human-made environment. Even the choice of subject matter—often the anonymous vernacular culture of everyday locations and places—was unembellished and appreciated for its simplicity and lack of prominence.

 American Nocturne takes its cue from the legacy of American straight photography. It looks at the America of the here and now; locally, and in the present moment. Artists such as Edward Hopper—another modernist with a focus on America, and George Ault have captured the particular loneliness of the nocturnal American urban life. American Nocturne uses large-format film camera—a standard tool of the American straight photographers, and extends this heritage to the current moment. 

 Large format, despite its clarity and fidelity has an innate shallow depth of field, which softens the background in a photograph. In an attempt to mitigate this quality the final images for American Nocturneare the result of a composite of multiple photographs taken across various focal planes. The goal is not to draw attention to the technique but to extend the ability of the large-format medium to create images of unusual clarity and fidelity, all in an effort to render the made world in a new and enhanced manner. 

 American Nocturne was made possible through a generous grant by the Eastman Kodak Company.

Zed Saeed, untitled, American Nocturne series, 40”x50” inkjet print from 8x10 negative scans, 2020.

Invocation
Shae Goodlett, MFA Thesis Candidate 

Invocation is a series of meditative line drawings that conjure an intangible presence by exercising the illusory characteristics of light and color interaction. Through a meditative and labor-intensive process, Goodlett attempts perfection, knowing that it cannot be reached. The images' interactions conjure phantom colors and optical effects which are not physically present, but nonetheless real and communally experienced. In this way, Goodlett’s work addresses issues of ritual, divinity, and perception.

			Invocation acrylic on wood panel 4" x 6"
Effigy, left Oracle, right		Bleach Temple, left Ritual I, right	Psalter	Ritual I
	seven x seventy ink on paper  30" x 40"	Void ink on paper 30" x 40"

Peter Williams: Incarceration
February 7-March 21, 2020
Reception: Friday February 7, 2020 | 6-8 pm
Cressman Center for Visual Arts

Much “political” art today—and, indeed, much of the political art of the past forty years—has placed medium in the service of message. Such work takes the form that its content demands. But for forty years Peter Williams has been doing something quite a bit more complicated: he treats politics as a support for investigating radical painterly invention. Williams’ art is certainly about the politics of blackness—historical politics, contemporary politics, personal politics, and future politics. But Williams’ gambit is painterly, and his investigation and invention take up the vocabularies of high modernism and its demands for new modes of representation. He is a particularly inventive colorist in this regard, using a “hyperbolic” palette to compose his work. His terms are familiar; flatness and the grid loom large for him just as they did for many avant-garde painters. However, for Williams, the grid can never be disambiguated from prison bars and cages, disciplinary apparatuses that seek to organize not just a world (as the grid does for a painting) but also its inhabitants. 

This is the point of departure for the exhibition Peter Williams: Incarceration. In the work on display, Williams threads historical conditions of black incarceration—the middle passage, slavery, and escape—through current modes of black incarceration—prison, cultural appropriation, and the legacy effects of redlining. These “political” threads compose the support for a similar kind of painterly weaving, one in which the artist elaborates on the modernist grid and various compositional inventions like the flatting of the picture plane and expressionistic use of line and color. Thus, for example, a ship carrying slaves across the middle passage is also a cruise ship holding prisoners of a different sort. This, in turn, serves as the support for Williams’ investigation of “dot” painting technique, gridding, and framing (Voyage, Then and Now, 2019). Williams’ paintings are, in this way, not about incarceration, they are about painting—but also about painting from a particular racial position and thus never “about” anything else. In this way too the work can be at once heartbreaking and funny, critical and nonsensical. It is both committed in its politics and radical in its composition. 

Artist Talk with Peter Williams and Gallery Director Chris Reitz: View Here

Exhibition Press:

There is Nothing United about the United States or the Art World,John Yau, Hyperallergic

At UofL's Cressman Center, Peter Williams' work uses joyful colors to Tackle Black Incarceration, Natalie Weis, WFPL

Image: Peter Williams, Incarceration, New Nation!, 2019, Oil-based enamel, oil, and graphite on canvas , 72 x 144 in  Image courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

            Peter Williams lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and is Senior Professor in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Delaware. In 2018 Williams was inducted into the National Academy of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2018), Joan Mitchell Award (2004 and 2007), Ford Foundation Fellowship (1985 and 1987), and McKnight Foundation Fellowship (1983). His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Delaware Art Museum, Davis Museum of Art at Wellesley College, Howard University in Washington DC.

            Williams’ recent exhibitions include Black Universe (2020), MOCAD, Detroit, MI; Men of Steel, Women of Wonder (2019), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; River of Styx (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; With So Little To Be Sure Of (2018), CUE Art Foundation, New York; Soul Recordings (2018), Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Prospect.4: The Lotus In Spite Of The Swamp (2017-18), Prospect Triennial, New Orleans, LA; Dark Humor: Peter Williams (2017). 

Our World Our Say: Understanding HIV Risk and Resilience Among Adolescents Who Have Been Orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Hai Phong, Vietnam

This art-advocacy exhibition will deliver messages about HIV risk and resilience among adolescents who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS and raised by their grandparents in Hai Phong, Vietnam. Using photovoice methods embedded within a summer camp, focus group sessions and journals were analyzed on the youth-identified topics of HIV/AIDS, child labor, reproductive health,  sex work, substance abuse, childhood sexual abuse and Hai Phong/Our City. The exhibition space is designed and curated by Kate Byun to captivate the audiences’ attention for conveying messages related to social change.

Our World Our Say will be on view at the Schneider Hall Galleries from January 10-February 6, 2020.
A reception will be held on Friday January 10 from 5-7 pm.  

Image: Michael Gorman, It's A Horse of Course? 2018, Shoe, Wire, Stool legs, Counter top and Rope

This year’s Annual Student Exhibition features work from across the Hite Art Institute’s extensive disciplinary range, from sculpture to print making, ceramics to design. It also highlights the conceptual and stylistic diversity of our talented students. But despite this diversity, certain thematic concerns are clear. The modernist design aesthetic of Lily Chalson’s skateboard and playful musical pairings, the fantastical found construction of Michael Gorman’s giraffe, and the recreational paraphilia of Mallory Lucus’ Chill Out suggest that this work is deeply concerned with the role of play in our daily lives. And yet Chill Out also hints at a darker side of play. Indeed if we read the title as a command, the work resonates with artwork in the exhibition that investigates boredom, anxiety and fear—artwork like Natalie Shain’s Dissociation, MadelineSchowalter’s Ofelia, and Samuel Wilding’s Untitled. Is this the binary state of our new ludic economy? Are we trapped between these inescapable positions: playing or bored; laughing or anxious?

The Annual Student Exhibition will be on view at the Cressman Center for Visual Arts from December 20-February 1, 2020.
A reception will be held on Friday January 24, 2019 from 6-8 pm.  

The College of Architecture at Hunan University in Changsha, China celebrated its 90th anniversary this month. Professor Delin Lai was invited to present his paper, "The Modernization of Hunan and Its Influence on Architectural Education in Changsha."

Accomplished educators like Professor Lai are what make us a #GreatPlacetoLearn!

UofL College of Arts and Sciences

The annual OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND is a landmark event when artists across the Louisville Metro open their work spaces to the public. It’s a prime opportunity for fans, collectors, fellow artists, or those just curious about Louisville’s bustling scene to get behind-the-scenes views of creative processes, learn about new artists in the area, and take advantage of studio sales.

This year's Juried Exhibition was juried by Linda Schwartz, Curator and Director of Alternate Projects Cincinnati; Dustin Hedrick, artist and founder of Channel To Channel gallery, Nashville; and Becky Alley, Gallery Director, Bolivar Art Gallery, Lexington; and featured 19 participating artists including: Britany Baker, Angie Reed Garner, Bryan Holden, Caroline Waite, Chuck Swanson, Debby Stratford, Debra Lott, Erica Lewis, Geoff Carr, Katy Delahanty, Lindsey Bishop, Lisa Kurtz,  Megan Bickel, Tom Cannady, Nancy Gordon Moore, Noah Howard, Rosalie Rosenthal, and Tara Remington.

The Hite Art Institute is pleased to announce the 2019 Fall BFA Thesis Exhibition. The exhibition will display artwork in a variety of mediums from students graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute.

Students participating in the 2019 BFA thesis exhibition include: Christopher Bodden, Christopher Brophy, Stephanie Garvin, Taylor Hayes, Judy Henry, Nina Kersey, Remington King, Shelby Mattingly, Hannah Melvin, Cassidy Meurer, Steven Tanner, Brooks Vessels, and Hollie Ann Yocum.

Tomorrow, head to 21c Museum Hotel Louisville at 6:30 for an artist panel discussing SCREEN TIME, a 3-D projection-mapping, pop-up installation. The panel will feature artists Professor Valerie Fuchs and Christopher Ottinger, as well as GBBN Architects's Ted Madden.

You can see SCREEN TIME through December 1 at 21C.

We may be biased, but we're pretty sure Hite students are the best students!
Congratulations to Eugena on receiving these scholarships. They're well deserved!

#StudentSpotlight #HiteArt

Tomorrow night! Join us for the BFA Fall 2019 Thesis Exhibition reception from 5-7 pm in out Schneider Hall Galleries. Featuring 13 BFA students graduating this semester

Professor Rachel Singel welcomed multi-media artist Jade Hoyer to speak with and offer critiques to her printmaking students.

Hoyer works in an expanded print practice, combining printmaking with artist’s books, social practice, and community activism. She has exhibited nationally and internationally has been recognized by organizations such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is based in Denver, Colorado, where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=507919773270648

Are you interested in studying abroad this summer? Would you like to spend 3+ weeks in Morocco, creating art, engaging with students and local artists, all while earning 3 studio art elective credits? If this sounds like something you're interested in, an information session will be held tomorrow, November 5 at 12:00PM in room 5 in the lower level of Schneider Hall.

Are you interested in learning more about Creative Capital Awards? Check out this info session event. Professor Chris Reitz, a past reviewer of Creative Capital Award applications, will be speaking. Learn how artists can apply for the Creative Capital Award valued at $100,000, including $50,000 in project funding, and an additional $50,000 in career development services—all dedicated to supporting artists complete their innovative project ideas.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-capital-award-applica…

Morocco, Many Eyes, One Vision!
MFA Gallery
1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY 40203

Morocco, Many Eyes, One Vision!

In spring 2019, five photography students received a Hite scholarship to travel to Morocco under the supervision of Professor Mary Carothers and Rachid Tagoulla, Hite’s first international MFA student. The group participated in a film festival sponsored by Ibn Zohr University, based in Agadir, a modern coastal city where they made lasting friendships from all over the world. Additionally, students met with photographers from Club Photo d’Agadir and discussed ways to build exchange exhibitions. The Hite students then accompanied Professor Carothers to Tetouan, an ancient city nestled in the Rif mountains, where she has developed a partnership with Green Olive Art Center. This partnership will provide customized artist residencies for Hite students beginning summer 2020.

Morocco, Many Eyes, One Vision! presents an inclusive exhibition of photographs realized by each of the Hite students that attended the excursion and members of Club Photo D’Agadir. These photographers are encouraging us to explore, on our own, the ideas and emotions that bind humanity together. Connecting photographers and artists in general from two continents is an on-going partnership between University of Louisville, Ibn Zohr University, Photo Club D’Agadir, Green Olive Art Center and is also a future Sister Cities friendship between Louisville and Agadir. Morocco, Many Eyes, One Vision! will have an opening reception on Saturday October 5, 2019 from 1-3 pm at the MFA Gallery located at 1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY 40203.

Curated by Rachid Tagoulla

Participating photographers: Abdelhadi Azrhirh, Abdelillah Rafik, Abderrahim Essalhi, Amina Brakez, Boujemaa Zakri, Christopher Bodden, Layne Wegenast, Mohamed Aitoubihi, Moulay Ahmed Kassi, Nabil Elalami, Olivia Pike, Remington King, Said Aoubraim, Taylor Hayes, Younes Goussyra, Youssef Akoujan, and Youssef El-Ouardi.