Episode 441: Sharon Louden

by | Feb 10, 2014 | Podcast


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Sharon Louden
This week: Live from Miami, well it was broadcast live at the time, whatever, anyways, Sharon Louden!!

Sharon M. Louden graduated with a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Yale University, School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Drawing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Birmingham Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Louden’s work is held in major public and private collections including the Neuberger Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Arkansas Arts Center, Yale University Art Gallery, Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.

Sharon Louden’s work has also been written about in the New York Times, Art in America, Washington Post, Sculpture Magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as other publications. She has received a grant from the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and has participated in residencies at Tamarind Institute, Urban Glass and Art Omi.

Louden’s animations continue to be screened and featured in many film festivals and museums all over the world. Her animation, Carrier, premiered in the East Wing Auditorium of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in March, 2011 in a historical program of abstract animation since 1927. Sharon also premiered a new animation titled, Community, at the National Gallery of Art in the program, “Cine Concert: Abstract Film and Animation Since 1970” on September 8, 2013.

Louden was commissioned by the Weisman Art Museum to make a site-specific work in dialogue with Frank Gehry’s new additions to the museum. Entitled Merge, this solo exhibition consisted of over 350,000 units of aluminum extending over a 3,000 square foot space and was on view from October 2011 through May 2012. This piece was then reconfigured and permanently installed in Oak Hall at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT and completed in January, 2013.

Also in 2013, Louden received a New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship in the category of Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design.

Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition of new work including Community (the animation that premiered at the National Gallery of Art), as well a site-specific installation, painting, drawing and sculpture at Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York in October through November, 2013. Currently on view is  a solo exhibition of Louden’s paintings and drawings at Beta Pictoris/Maus Contemporary Art in Birmingham, Alabama, which will run through February 16, 2014.

Sharon Louden has taught for more than 20 years since graduating from Yale in 1991. Her teaching experience includes studio and professional practice classes to students of all levels in colleges and universities throughout the United States. Colleges and universities at which she has lectured and taught include: Kansas City Art Institute, College of Saint Rose, Massachusetts College of Art, Vanderbilt University and Maryland Institute College of Art. Sharon currently teaches at the New York Academy of Art in New York City. Last summer, Sharon taught experimental drawing and collage in the School of Art at Chautuaqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

In addition to teaching at the New York Academy of Art, Sharon also conducts a popular Lecture Series where she interviews luminaries and exceptional individuals in the art world and from afar.

Louden is also the editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 Working Artists published by Intellect Books and distributed by the University of Chicago Press. The book is already on its fourth printing since the first run sold out before its official release on October 15th, and has been #1 on Amazon.com’s Bestseller List of Business Art References. It was also on Hyperallergic’s List of Top Art Books of 2013. Recent press includes an interview in Hyperallergic blogazine, “How do Artists Live?”. 

A book tour started on November 2, 2013 which includes Sharon Louden and other contributors visiting cities across the United States and in Europe through 2015.  Highlights include an event in the Salon at the Art Basel Miami Beach Art Fair this past December, 2013 as well as a discussion and book event at the 92nd St Y in New York and a panel discussion at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC in January, 2014. For more information on the book tour, please clickhere.

In addition, she continues to conduct Glowtown workshops in schools and not-for-profit organizations across the country. Louden is also active on boards and committees of various not-for-profit art organizations and volunteers her time to artists to further their careers.

Sharon is a full-time practicing, professional artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Christopher Hudgens
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