Solo Exhibition :: The Kentucky Gentleman Series

Exploring identity issues

By Diane Heilenman
Courier-Journal visual arts critic

Say, who? The issue of identity tugs at us all, not just artists like Paul Gauguin or Cindy Sherman.

Bryce Hudson, a nine-year expatriate of Columbus, Ohio, to Louisville, gives us his take on 11 "Kentucky Gentlemen" in a series of photographic prints at Gallery NuLu, 632 E. Market St., second floor. There is a black bellman, a Hispanic house painter, a Chinese student, a white NASCAR fan, a Jewish man with dreadlocks, a character named "Thuglife," a freckle-faced Irish type named Rob, a long-haired Latino with a dynamite shirt styled "Miami Bryce" and the artist himself, "Bryce."

They are, of course, all Hudson, who in an unrelated self-portrait, "50% Black 50% White," appears digitalized literally half-and-half, just like his parentage. We inevitably get caught in some level of profiling and preconception with the "Gentlemen," but just because Hudson lets us laugh at ourselves doesn't mean we get to leave the show without further contemplating the complexities of race and class stereotypes.

Hudson further defines how identity is far deeper than appearances in collage images about the Civil War ("White Soldier on a Black Field") and the anonymity of being a beautiful black woman ("Beauties of the Month"). His painted geometric abstractions deftly, if less transparently, symbolize similar issues. Ends May 30. Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.

Reporter Diane Heilenman can be reached at (502) 582-4682.

-- Diane Heilenman