#pyro gallery

Artists can and often do have many sides to their creative expression; writers paint, singers sculpt and sometimes it seems as if everybody takes pictures (doesn’t make them a photographer).

We have visited Kathleen Loomis previously as a maker of flag images that make political and social statements, but today she shares her version of a not uncommon artist’s practice: daily assignments. Of course, most any committed artist enters their studio every day, but in addition to whatever ongoing projects that might be taking up their time, the might set themselves the task of completing one self-contained idea each day, possibly in the morning. Like morning yoga or calisthenics, it gets the blood moving for the remainder of the day. 

“I've been doing daily art since 2001,” Loomis tells us. “Each year the rules change; in different years I have worked with photography, collage, drawing, hand stitching, quilting, soft sculpture and mail art.  

Loomis is a very active blogger, so the evidence of this strain of work is often evidenced there. In 2010 she took a photo every day and posted it: kathysdailyart.blogspot.com. In 2014 Loomis made a collage every day, but also challenged herself to expand on those ideas once a week for a bigger collage piece. A gradual increase in scale also followed her 2016 daily practice: “I did a drawing every day, filling five sketchbooks. Each new sketchbook was a bit larger than the previous ones as I gained confidence.”

“Once you've done it this long, the concept takes on a life of its own. Ask me why I do daily art, I'll tell you that I like the discipline and structure, that it makes me think about art every day, that the regular work improves my skill and focus, that the repetition allows me to explore ideas without the risk of a ‘real’ work. But I also do daily art because I do daily art. It has become a part of my life and I would feel bereft, missing an essential part of me, without it.” 

Loomis’s solo exhibit, Day by Day by Day: adventures in regular art, will be at PYRO Gallery in Louisville October 25 through December 1, 2018. The artist will give a gallery talk November 3 at 12 noon.

Selected Exhibitions

Pyro Gallery, Louisville KY, Day by Day by Day, 2018; New Year, New Pyro Artists, 2017     

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis IN, Dialogues, 2016      

Dairy Barn, Athens OH, and on tour throughout the US, Quilt National ’15, ’11,’09 and ’03 (Quilts Japan Prize, 2009)      

Jasper Arts Center, Jasper IN, Annual Juried Art Exhibits, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2017 (award of merit, 2011; best in show, 2015 and 2017)

Hometown: Saginaw, Michigan Education: BA in Journalism, Syracuse University; MSJ Northwestern University Website: http://kathleenloomis.com

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  Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

Corie Neumayer is an accomplished woman, but she has a soft-spoken and unassuming demeanor that doesn’t automatically claim much for herself. It is not an unusual quality to find in a visual artist, and even more common for women creatives. That painters tend to be introverts is a cliché, certainly, but the truth that is the foundation for that stereotype is that artists look inward and outward on different terms than others.

Neumayer describes herself as a painter, “…who creates abstracted paintings of the landscape that focus on open spaces: desserts, mountains, lakes, small towns as well as my local countryside. My current work reflects the now fleeting beauty of our environment and the uneasiness caused by the changes in our climate.”

So while she looks outward for her subject, the inward perspective is expressed in the that balance of abstract and representational, a tension born of the artist’s forensic examination of the environment. Breaking everything down into geographic elements and using color and texture less to define space and form than to suggest those relationships. It underscores that there is often a thin line between descriptions and categories in art. Neumayer’s paintings are representational, and thus traditional, but abstract and conceptual, intellectual and emotional.

“I work mainly in acrylic and latex because it is so versatile. It dries quickly so the surprises of layering paint, or paper, cloth or almost anything else can be experienced almost immediately, and it lends itself to endless experimentation.”

In that statement the artist confirms the itch for discovery, but there is also a great pleasure in the tactile surface quality that documents the painter’s hand. The impasto crafted from brush, knife, and perhaps other tools, give a visceral kick to the viewer – paint is always seductive, has recently given way to a collage-like layering of canvas material.. 

On September 29, Neumayer will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Education: MA in Teaching, University of Louisville; BA, Georgetown College (Georgetown Kentucky); also attended Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, Georgia), California State University-Long Beach, and St. Cloud College (St. Cloud, Minnesota) Gallery Representative: Pyro Gallery Website: www.corieneumayerpaintings.com

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

The picture is blurry, probably a "caught image" from a cell phone in the hand of a fellow contra dancer - there are many "better" pictures of her, in focus and more formally composed photographs, but it is Susan Moffett's last choice for the profile picture on her Facebook page, and we include it here because it seems to speak volumes about her energy and enthusiasm for life. Today we remember this artist who meant so much to the community, beginning with words from just a few of her many friends: 

"Susan was a wonderful printmaker, a fine arts educator, a musician, a world traveler and a great friend. She sought and found the experiences that make life vivid and meaningful. The lives she touched are a beautiful ripple expanding into the world. I will miss her for the rest of my life." - Wendi Smith, artist

"Susan was a creative force.  In the visual art community we knew her work mainly as beautiful, spiritual reflections on the natural world which are greatly admired. But the depth of her creative energy was vast and not limited by media. She was a loving and nurturing mother, a devoted teacher, a poet (especially of haiku), a musician and dancer. Susan was surrounded by loyal, loving friends who all knew her in one or more of her creative manifestations. As we are gathering and sharing our grief we are still learning from each other about her many talents." -Kay Grubola, artist and curator

"Susan was one of the building blocks of our program (at IU Southeast). Our fabulous print shop was built from scratch by Susan and Brian Jones – resulting in one of the best equipped shops in the region. Susan was a dedicated printmaker, who created beautiful prints throughout her career at IUS and after her retirement. She was active in regional and national printmaking organizations, a member of FACET, and a former Dean. For more than 30 years at IUS, she taught and inspired countless numbers of our students." - Debra Clem, Painting Professor at IU Southeast

The following is from our last Artebella post on Susan, in November 2016:

Music is so often, if not always, an integral part of the life of a visual artist. Besides being a highly respected printmaker and teacher, Susan Moffett is also a “Caller” for contra and square dances, and now is playing the fiddle. If we might characterize such pursuits as folk music crossed with precision of execution, it would be perhaps be a fair description of the work we see here.

The tradition and protocol of printmaking includes labored technique, process, and the notion of limited editions of prints pulled by the artist to their exacting standards, but we find Moffett abandoning those for what she calls the, “the freedom and spontaneity of woodcut monoprints. Instead of a traditional series of perfected prints with a consistent image, I opt to use the block prints in an intuitive exploration of organic forms, creating rhythm within and relationships between the prints. Small prints are repurposed in relationships of color, density and repetition, to make a larger installation.”

Although Moffett is too educated and sophisticated in her sensibilities to be labeled a folk artist, there is an elemental quality in these latest images. Yet, because they are densely textured and highly detailed, they are also complex. We often find such tension at the heart of art that is compelling, a balance of contrasting themes and aesthetic that seems the honest, organic result of genuine discovery. 

Moffett was a founding member of PYRO Gallery in Louisville. She has exhibited throughout the United States as well as abroad in Ireland, Poland and Australia. Her work is in numerous public and private collections including:

Selected Collections • Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN • Hyatt Regency, Louisville, KY • Brown-Forman Distillers Corp., Louisville, KY • The Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville, KY • Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, Louisville, KY • University of Dallas, Irving, TX • The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN • Owensboro Museum of Art, Owensboro, KY • The University of South Florida, Tampa, FL  

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

When Shawn Marshall was inspired to paint the view from an airplane window, we might assume that it was a rainy flight, with hopefully not too much turbulence, because Marshall’s balance between abstract and representational might suggest an overhead perspective on landscape through a rain-smeared pane of glass: the details are blurred, and the contours defining the roads and fields below are elusive, hard to pin down.

Abstraction makes you look harder at things. The central question in the viewer’s mind becomes - what do I see? The more cynical might phrase the question differently: what am I looking at? Yet one might offer that to be demand that art explain itself to you is actually the lazy approach. Marshall challenges the viewer, enticing them with just enough discernible representation, but layering a veneer of abstract expressionism between them and her subject, built with a heavily textured impasto that forces an immediate visceral relationship with the surface. Paint is always seductive.

“I create a three-dimensional surface on the canvas; always striving for balance between the layers of impasto and the underlying landscape beyond.” – Shawn Marshall

The bisected compositional structure, normally recognizing the natural horizon line encountered in the open, rural landscape, remains in these airborne point-of-view, Marshall’s eye always finding a road or river that cuts through the quadrants of fields and developments below.

Marshall was awarded First Place in the 2017 MAZIN Juried Art Exhibition that just closed at The Patio Gallery at the Jewish Community Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and she is about to open a solo show at Craft(s) Gallery & Mercantile in Louisville that will run from March 2 through 31, with an Opening Reception March 2 from 6:00-10:00pm.

Her work is in numerous private collections including PNC Bank, Pittsburgh, PA, Commonwealth Bank, Louisville, KY, and the University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington, KY.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Education: 1992, Bachelor of Architecture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; 1996, Master of Architecture, Minor Fine Arts, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; 2009, Master of Art in Teaching, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY Website: www.shawnlmarshall.com Gallery Representation: Pyro Gallery (Louisville),  New Editions Gallery (Lexington), Yust Gallery (Cincinnati)

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2017 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

"The universal language of humanity spanning across time and geography informs my work." - Kayla Bischoff

When Kayla Bischoff cites her influences, Jean Dubuffet seems to be the clearest line: the utter denial of perspective and the embrace of his ‘art brut’ aesthetic, which celebrated the idea of art produced by ‘non-professionals.’ Bischoff certainly is no amateur, but her dense, kinetic compositions are filled with figures and faces rendered in a deliberately unsophisticated style, as if anybody could draw them.

Yet a laymen’s vision of what is accomplished art would arguably still be colored by an ambition to create form and space with detail and depth built from craft. What Bischoff gives us instead are simple images layered one upon another, forcing relationships and building depth through a density of marks that threatens to overwhelm the viewer; except she knows when to pull up. Her world is all surface, but what a busy, busy surface it is.

“The style in which I paint is a balance of abstraction, representation, spontaneous expression, and conscious decisions. The characters are hurriedly drawn in frenzy, and then built upon with several layers of paint to enhance the depth of the surface. I convey my ideas in paintings because the immediacy allows for uninhibited mark making. The tactile nature of the paint feels authentic while connecting me to the earliest form of human visual expression.”  “As a contemporary artist I actively study and absorb art history. I seek to create a connection between contemporary art and that of past civilizations. I reference ancient artworks, such as figurines and masks from various cultures — Andean, Mesoamerican, Japanese, African, Aboriginal, etc. The universal language of humanity spanning across time and geography informs my work. The use of stylized figures acts as a communicative shorthand of body language and facial `expressions. Through the playfully chaotic layers of figurative abstraction, my work comments on the plight of the individual and humanity as a whole.”

“Gaping mouths, shrugging shoulders, flailing arms, and cackling faces occupy the surface in an overcrowded frenzy. On the surface my paintings are vibrant and playful; however, I invite the viewer to peer closer into the cluttered surface of detailed disorder to discover many of the abstracted figures experience some inner trepidation.”

In 2017, Bischoff had her 2nd solo exhibit, Push/Pull: Paintings by Kayla Bischoff, at Jasper Community Arts: Krempp Gallery, Jasper Arts Center, Jasper IN.

Bischoff is having a two-person show with Bob Lockhart at PYRO Gallery in Louisville, February 22 through April 7, 2018. There will be an opening reception Friday, February 23 from 5:00-7:00pm, and a Gallery Talk featuring both artists Sunday, February 25 at 1:00pm.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Education: BA, (Magna Cum Laude) Studio Art: Painting Emphasis/Minors in Art History & Psychology, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY, 2014 Website: kaylabischoff.com Instagram: /knbischoff/ Gallery Representation: Galerie Hertz (Louisville)         

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Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2017 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.

“Painting is a restorative and meditative ‘practice’” – Shawn Marshall

When Shawn Marshall speaks about ‘restorative and meditative practice,’ it is a clue to what lies behind the simplicity of her paintings. Previous work has been more complex compositionally, but the spare and uncluttered landscape form that she is preoccupied with here seems less a document of a time and place and more about an internal mental or emotional state.

“For me, painting is an outlet to release intuitive energy and let go of preconceived notions of self-imposed rules or judgments of how I and my work interpret and portray the world. Though my architectural background and training often manifests itself in my work, it doesn’t constrain the freedom of expression. Using palette knives and sharp edged tools I create a three-dimensional surface on the canvas, always striving to create a balance between the built-up yet refined impasto and the underlying landscape beyond. Painting is a restorative and meditative ‘practice’ as I create what I refer to as ‘inward landscapes.’”

The harmony achieved belies the type training and experience we might assume for an artist coming from the exacting and technical architecture training, and the viewer must ask how much of Marshall’s work is a journey in the opposite direction; the training providing foundation but the action of painting a break away from that rigor and formal discipline to achieve a peaceful resolve.

Professionally, Marshall has worked as an Architectural Designer for several years, but most recently has taught at public schools in the Louisville area, including her current position as Visual Arts Teacher at North Oldham High School in Goshen, KY.

Marshall is a member of PYRO Gallery in Louisville, and recently was included in two group exhibits, Selfies & Self-Portraits: 21 C Artists… at Viridian Artists Gallery, New York, NY, and The Modern Landscape at New Editions Gallery, Lexington, KY. She will be having a solo exhibit at Craft[s] Gallery & Mercantile in March 2018.

Shawn Marshall will be participating in the 2017 Open Studio Weekend, sponsored by Louisville Visual Art and University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute. Her studio in Downtown Louisville will be open the weekend of November 4 and 5. Tickets for Open Studio Weekend will go on sale October 16. Click here for more information.

Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Education: 1992, Bachelor of Architecture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; 1996, Master of Architecture, Minor Fine Arts, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; 2009, Master of Art in Teaching, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY Website: www.shawnlmarshall.com Instagram: shawnmarshall

Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2017 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved.