1 of 3
“Fruticultura and the Modern Monarch” by Jared Boechler. Lexington Art League’s “The Nude: Brutal Beauty” exhibit features a selection of local, regional, national and international works. Image furnished
2 of 3
“Armani Butler” by Patrick Smith. Smith, a Lexington artist, has 12 pieces featured in “The Nude: Brutal Beauty” exhibit. Image furnished
3 of 3
Louis Marinaro’s “Beehive” is among the three-dimensional works featured in the show. Image furnished
Following a hiatus of several years and experimentation with different formats, one of Lexington’s biggest signature art exhibits has returned, stripped down and back to its most bare form, according to organizers. Following this year’s theme of “Brutal Beauty,” the Lexington Art League’s 2018 installment of “The Nude” exhibit opened in late January and will remain on display at the Loudoun House through Feb. 25.
Lexington Art League’s executive director, Stephanie Harris, describes the show as “a stark and unapologetic look at the figure in all of its beauty and brutality.”
“In art, as in life, some of the most beautiful things are the most painful,” Harris said. “This exhibition allows us to examine these feelings in depth.”
The theme for this year’s show – which consists of 60 works from close to 50 artists – was largely inspired by the work of Lexington artist Patrick Smith, Harris said. Smith has 12 new works featured in the show.
“His paintings have a rawness that is unlike anything I have seen,” Harris said. “It’s not just about portraiture or figure work – it’s about really being able to get the essence of the person within the composition of the work. They reverberate with the essence of the subjects that are captured.
“To me, there’s a beauty in that that is painful,” she said.
Smith, 31, creates intimate, hyper-realistic portraits – mostly based on photographs he takes of friends – utilizing a classic shading technique that incorporates lots of heavy layers of acrylic paint. It’s a process he says is designed to create an optical, almost 3-D effect. Where many of his previous works have juxtaposed the portraits against lively, brightly colored and patterned backgrounds, the series he created for this show has a darker slant.
“I attempted to make pieces that gave me the same sensation as hearing the words ‘brutal beauty,’” said Smith. “Brutal means direct, literal, and intensified – you do not need special knowledge to recognize something as brutal.”
One of the Lexington Art League’s signature events for over 30 years, “The Nude” exhibit has captivated audiences, pushing and evolving the boundaries of the traditional figure study since its inception. Though its early years focused strictly on traditional two-dimensional works, the show eventually expanded to include three-dimensional work and mixed media. In 2012, in an effort to reinvigorate the event, “Body|Figure|Nude” broadened the scope to include the figure in all its forms – both clothed and unclothed. In 2013, “The Nude: Self & Others” included works that continued to challenge the boundaries of a traditional nude exhibit, focusing on themes that included violence, sex and the body as an object or experience.
Despite the exhibit’s long-running success and popularity, LAL briefly moved away from the format in 2014, focusing the bulk of curatorial and other resources on “Luminosity,” the large-scale, interactive light-based exhibition featuring both indoor and outdoor works installed throughout Lexington. In 2015 the organization focused on prioritizing site-specific programming, again reallocating resources traditionally reserved for January’s “The Nude” opening party to other projects.
In 2016, however, LAL returned to its annual figure study, utilizing a guest curatorial program to incorporate more of an outside perspective. Julien Robson, a former curator at Louisville’s Speed Art Museum and the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, created “Artist: Body,” a show focused on self-portraiture and the artists’ sense of ownership of their own bodies and how they are represented. In 2017 “Demographically Speaking: A Figurative Exhibition” was curated by Daniel Pfalzgraf of Covington’s Carnegie Arts Center. The show examined the demographics of artists studying the figure and addressed the lack of diversity among both the artists working in this area and their subjects.
“Demographically Speaking” proved to be extraordinary timely, Harris said.
“During the year that followed, our country underwent waves of upheaval,” she added, referring to protests surrounding issues of race and gender inequity.
The success of the 2016 and 2017 shows – combined with many requests for the return of the show from long-time fans – has brought the Lexington Art League full circle, with this year’s show promising its audience a spectacular and challenging exploration of physical desires and limitations, while boldly approaching the way we experience the human form.
“I think that this show is really the evolution of what has happened with [The Nude] over its long legacy,” Harris said. “What we found this year is that there’s a really brutally honest response to the figure … there’s this elegance, but there’s also this real kind of basic human instincts that are coming out.
“Art is not only about aesthetics – it has a greater function in that it evokes feeling, guides us to places of contemplation, and it has inherent power,” she added. “There is an authenticity that is needed now more than ever. People just need things to be real.”
1 of 3
"Abcess" by Vinhay Keo (on loan from Moremen Moloney Gallery in Louisville). Image furnished
2 of 3
"Self Purgation" by Vinhay Keo (on loan from Moremen Moloney Gallery). Image furnished
3 of 3
"Acceptance" by Andel Estrella. Image furnished
Lexington Art League presents “The Nude: Brutal Beauty”
On display at the through Feb. 25 at the Loudoun House, 209 Castlewood Drive
Fourth Friday Closing Reception on Feb. 23, 6-9 p.m.
Featuring food and drink by Sweet Lilu’s and West Sixth Brewing, and music by DJ Leeroy