BIO | Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi is an artist whose creative talent flows through family heritage. Coming from a lineage of artists on her IO maternal side, she has always seen art as a natural part of her life. Initially focused on honing her drawing skills, Latonia began working with oil paints in 2012, bringing a refined sense of composition and technique from years of prior practice. Recent exhibitions of her work have been presented at the WUKY Gallery and LexArts, with forthcoming shows at the Pam Miller Downtown Art Center and 2nd Story. An active member of Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective, Latonia continues to expand her creative expression and presence within Lexington’s art community and beyond.

ARTIST STATEMENT | My artistic practice is linked to the spiritual experiences that have shaped my understanding of the world, and my deeply held belief in the interconnectedness of all life. I communicate this through my paintings by combining portraiture and figuration with metaphysical iconography and cosmic motifs, collapsing the material and spiritual realms within each composition. When making portraits, I harness my subject's unique energy and emotion, using each brushstroke to capture not just their physical likeness, but the intangible essence of their being. In all of my paintings, symbolism plays an important role, with natural elements like trees, water, and lotus flowers serving as metaphors for growth, purity, and enlightenment.

BIO | Claire Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, Kentucky who works primarily in oil painting and risograph printmaking. She received her BFA from the University of Kentucky in 2023. Recent solo and two person exhibitions have been presented at Bolivar Gallery; Lexington Art League; Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library; and Visionaries + Voices in Cincinnati. She has been a part of group exhibitions through Muse Collective, The Faulkner Morgan Archive, Field Projects, Yeiser Art Center, Carbon Copy Gallery, The Print Room (Aberdeen, Scotland), The Carnegie (Cincinnati), and Golding-Yang Gallery. Her work has been written about in Undermain andLVL3, as well as being featured in soft core (edited by Rebecca Orr). Thompson is also the co-owner and co-operator of Lexington-based risograph press, Grotesk Press.

ARTIST STATEMENT | Working mainly in oil painting and risograph printing in the form of artist books, I examine, and even invent, pop culture mythology, treating famously troubled women like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan as though they are martyrs or Mater Dolorosa. By appropriating lowbrow images of publicly disgraced celebrities, and recreating them as oil portraits or quasi-fictional stories, I recontextualize these figures as contemporary symbols. Similar to religious icons, the women in my paintings and narratives become a mirror for people to understand their own pain, suffering, and hatred. Ultimately, I aim to dissect and elevate these images of "tabloid fodder" as a way to consider how our culture works: how we consume media, and how female identity is represented and understood through depictions of suffering women that have proliferated in popular consciousness.