Sharon Louden
Encyclopedia
Sharon Louden is an American Artist b. 1964.
Louden is known for her whimsical use of the line. Her paintings, drawings, animations, sculpture and installations are often centered around lines or linear abstractions and their implied or actual movement. Through her work she creates what she calls "anthropomorphic individuals". Although abstract and formal, she feels they have human-like aspects within their minimal state, made of simple line and gesture. In reference to her minimalist paintings, Louden has been called "the Robert Ryman of the 21st century".
Louden's work exists in the permanent collections of 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. She has received a grant from the Elizabeth Foundation, and has participated in residencies at Tamarind Institute, Urban Glass and Art Omi. Her work is represented by Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York City.
, living and working in New York City.
in 1991. At Yale, her mentors were Mel Bochner, William Bailey, Andrew Forge and Frances Barth. She received Yale's Schickle-Collingwood Prize in 1990. Louden studied figurative painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. However, through her education at Yale, her work merged into abstraction, creating a foundation for her work seen today.
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York, NY
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
Numark Gallery, Washington DC
Anthony Grant, Inc., New York, NY
Clark University, Worcester, MA
Ambrosino Gallery, Miami, FL
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
DiverseWorks ArtSpace, Houston, TX
Numark Gallery, Washington DC
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Dee/Glasoe Gallery, New York, NY
Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Works on Paper, Inc., Los Angeles, CA
Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY
Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY
Gina Fiore Salon of Fine Arts, New York, NY
Her first series of animations were included in a solo exhibition entitled "Character," which was a survey of paintings, drawings, installation, prints and animation at the Neuberger Museum of Art, curated by Dede Young.
Since then, Louden has made several more animations including "Pool," which was included in the Art Video Lounge exhibition curated by Michael Rush for the Art Basel Miami Art Fair in 2006. In addition to "Pool," "Hedge" and almost all of her animations have been surveyed in various children's film festivals in the US in 2008-2009.
"The Bridge," completed in 2008, has been shown at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and Gallery Joe in Philadelphia, PA. It has also been screened at the Queens International Film Festival and the New York Downtown Film Festival Audience Choice Screening in 2009. Because of positive audience response at the screening, "The Bridge" was selected for inclusion in the New York Downtown Film Festival, 2010.
Her animations have also been shown in many more film festivals including the Athens International Film and Video Festival in Athens, OH and the Honolulu International Film Festival, where she received an award for Excellence in Filmmaking in 2009. In 2010, Louden was the recipient of the Bronze Palm Award from the Mexico International Film Festival for her animation,"The Bridge". "Footprints" (2006), "Hedge" (2007), "The Bridge" (2008), and "Carrier" (2011) were screened in the East Wing Auditorium at the National Gallery of Art as a part of "Cine'-Concert: Art in Motion!" program where her animations were accompanied by live piano and percussion compositions by Andrew Simpson (piano) and Barry Dove (percussion). During this program Louden's multiple animations were screened with other notable works, such as: "Lines Horizontal" Norman McLaren
, 1962 ; "Two Space" Larry Cuba
, 1979 ; "Free Radicals" Len Lye
, 1958 ; "Symphonie Diagonal" Viking Eggeling
, 1924 ; "Silence" Jules Engel
,1968 ; and "Chemical Sundown" by Jeremy Blake
, 2001 to name only a few. "Carrier" premiered at this event.
Animation stills of various animations can be seen in published catalogs entitled "Character" and "Taking Turns." All ten animations (2005–2011) are included in the Iota Center's library collection.
Louden has also taught a workshop entitled "Glow Town" for the past 10 years in museums and schools across the country including the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Aldrich Museum Contemporary Art Museum, Katonah Museum of Art and at Peekskill High School in Peekskill, New York. Sharon Louden conducted the "Glow Town" workshop at schools in Greensburg, Kansas through the 5.4.7 Arts Center in May, 2010 and at the Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho on April 9, 2011.
Louden is known for her whimsical use of the line. Her paintings, drawings, animations, sculpture and installations are often centered around lines or linear abstractions and their implied or actual movement. Through her work she creates what she calls "anthropomorphic individuals". Although abstract and formal, she feels they have human-like aspects within their minimal state, made of simple line and gesture. In reference to her minimalist paintings, Louden has been called "the Robert Ryman of the 21st century".
Louden's work exists in the permanent collections of 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. She has received a grant from the Elizabeth Foundation, and has participated in residencies at Tamarind Institute, Urban Glass and Art Omi. Her work is represented by Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York City.
Personal life
Sharon Louden was born in Philadelphia, PA and raised outside of Washington DC in Olney, MD. Her mother, Marian Louden, resides in Stevensville, MD, and her father and stepmother are retired, living in Columbia, MD. Louden has three siblings: Mimi Louden, Karen Louden Allanach, and Jill Louden. She is married to jazz-musician/activist, Vinson ValegaVinson Valega
Vinson Valega is a jazz musician and composer who resides in New York City. He was born in Silver Spring, MD, on March 12, 1965. He was raised outside of Washington, DC in Olney, MD....
, living and working in New York City.
Education
Louden received her high school diploma at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Maryland, where she studied art with Mary Bloom and received numerous awards in her senior year.She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988, where she studied with Dan Gustin and Susanna Coffey. Followed by her studies at SAIC, Louden received her MFA from Yale School of ArtYale School of Art
The Yale School of Art is one of twelve constituent schools of Yale University. It is a professional art school, granting only Masters of Fine Arts degrees to those completing studies in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture....
in 1991. At Yale, her mentors were Mel Bochner, William Bailey, Andrew Forge and Frances Barth. She received Yale's Schickle-Collingwood Prize in 1990. Louden studied figurative painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. However, through her education at Yale, her work merged into abstraction, creating a foundation for her work seen today.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Gallery Joe, Philadelphia, PAWeatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York, NY
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
Numark Gallery, Washington DC
Anthony Grant, Inc., New York, NY
Clark University, Worcester, MA
Ambrosino Gallery, Miami, FL
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
DiverseWorks ArtSpace, Houston, TX
Numark Gallery, Washington DC
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Dee/Glasoe Gallery, New York, NY
Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Works on Paper, Inc., Los Angeles, CA
Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY
Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY
Gina Fiore Salon of Fine Arts, New York, NY
Selected Collections
Louden's work is held in major public and private collections throughout the United States, Asia and Europe including:- Arkansas Arts CenterArkansas Arts CenterOne of the leading cultural institutions in the state, the Arkansas Arts Center is located on the corner of 9th and Commerce streets in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The Arkansas Arts Center was founded in 1960, but the idea began in 1914, when the Fine Arts Club of Arkansas formed...
- AT&T
- Beverly Hills Cultural Center Foundation
- Birmingham Museum of ArtBirmingham Museum of ArtFounded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama today has one of the finest collections in the Southeast US, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing a numerous diverse cultures, including Asian, European, American,...
- British Petroleum Amoco Corporation
- Delaware Art MuseumDelaware Art MuseumThe Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 works. The museum, was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle and is now celebrating its centennial...
- Hallmark Cards Corporation
- Microsoft Corporation
- Munson Williams Proctor Institute Museum of Art
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
- National Museum of Women in the ArtsNational Museum of Women in the ArtsThe National Museum of Women in the Arts , located in Washington, D.C. is the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay...
- Neuberger Museum of Art
- Panasonic USA
- Pfizer, Inc., World Headquarters
- Progressive CorporationProgressive CorporationThe Progressive Corporation , known as the Progressive Casualty Insurance Company through its subsidiaries, provides personal automobile insurance, and other specialty property-casualty insurance and related services in the United States....
- Saks Fifth Avenue
- Starwood Urban Investments
- Teacher's Insurance and Annuity Association
- The Chambers Hotel
- Weatherspoon Art MuseumWeatherspoon Art MuseumThe Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in the southeast with a focus on American art. Its programming includes fifteen or more exhibitions per year, year-round educational...
- Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
- Yahoo! Corporate Headquarters
- Yale University Art GalleryYale University Art GalleryThe Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
- Werner H. Kramarsky
Animations
Sharon Louden has exhibited her animations in galleries, museums and film festivals across the country since 2006. Inspired by many artists, including Shel Silverstein, animation has become an important aspect to the development of Louden's overall visual language.Her first series of animations were included in a solo exhibition entitled "Character," which was a survey of paintings, drawings, installation, prints and animation at the Neuberger Museum of Art, curated by Dede Young.
Since then, Louden has made several more animations including "Pool," which was included in the Art Video Lounge exhibition curated by Michael Rush for the Art Basel Miami Art Fair in 2006. In addition to "Pool," "Hedge" and almost all of her animations have been surveyed in various children's film festivals in the US in 2008-2009.
"The Bridge," completed in 2008, has been shown at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and Gallery Joe in Philadelphia, PA. It has also been screened at the Queens International Film Festival and the New York Downtown Film Festival Audience Choice Screening in 2009. Because of positive audience response at the screening, "The Bridge" was selected for inclusion in the New York Downtown Film Festival, 2010.
Her animations have also been shown in many more film festivals including the Athens International Film and Video Festival in Athens, OH and the Honolulu International Film Festival, where she received an award for Excellence in Filmmaking in 2009. In 2010, Louden was the recipient of the Bronze Palm Award from the Mexico International Film Festival for her animation,"The Bridge". "Footprints" (2006), "Hedge" (2007), "The Bridge" (2008), and "Carrier" (2011) were screened in the East Wing Auditorium at the National Gallery of Art as a part of "Cine'-Concert: Art in Motion!" program where her animations were accompanied by live piano and percussion compositions by Andrew Simpson (piano) and Barry Dove (percussion). During this program Louden's multiple animations were screened with other notable works, such as: "Lines Horizontal" Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...
, 1962 ; "Two Space" Larry Cuba
Larry Cuba
Larry Cuba is a computer-animation artist who became active in the late 1970s and early 80s.Born in 1950 in Atlanta, Georgia, he received A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1972 and his Master's Degree from California Institute of the Arts which includes parallel schools of Dance,...
, 1979 ; "Free Radicals" Len Lye
Len Lye
Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific...
, 1958 ; "Symphonie Diagonal" Viking Eggeling
Viking Eggeling
Viking Eggeling was a Swedish artist and filmmaker. His work is of significance in the area of experimental film, and has been described as absolute film and Visual Music....
, 1924 ; "Silence" Jules Engel
Jules Engel
Jules Engel was a Jewish-Hungarian American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, animator, film director, and teacher...
,1968 ; and "Chemical Sundown" by Jeremy Blake
Jeremy Blake
Jeremy Blake was an American digital artist and painter. His work included projected DVD installations, Type C prints, and collaborative film projects.-Biography:...
, 2001 to name only a few. "Carrier" premiered at this event.
Animation stills of various animations can be seen in published catalogs entitled "Character" and "Taking Turns." All ten animations (2005–2011) are included in the Iota Center's library collection.
Public Works
Sharon Louden has worked in the realm of public art since approximately 1998. Her work often includes industrial materials that are transformed to resemble forms in nature, movement, or reference the human body. Public Art projects include "Reflecting Tips" in Sunnyvale, CA, and "Plantings at Riverside Park," in Cambridge, MA. She has also made temporary public art installations such as "Tangled Tips" at Metro Tech business park in Brooklyn, NY, through the Public Art Fund in 2000.Professional Experience
Sharon Louden has taught studio and professional practice classes to students of all levels in colleges and universities throughout the United States since 1991. Colleges and universities at which Louden has lectured and taught include: Kansas City Art Institute, College of Saint Rose, Massachusetts College of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art, New York Academy of Art, University of North Texas and Tyler School of Art, amongst others.Louden has also taught a workshop entitled "Glow Town" for the past 10 years in museums and schools across the country including the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Aldrich Museum Contemporary Art Museum, Katonah Museum of Art and at Peekskill High School in Peekskill, New York. Sharon Louden conducted the "Glow Town" workshop at schools in Greensburg, Kansas through the 5.4.7 Arts Center in May, 2010 and at the Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho on April 9, 2011.