ON VIEW FEBRUARY 9th - APRIL 12th, 2024
Tad DeSanto is a self-taught artist in his seventies living in Louisville, Kentucky. He uses found materials - things he finds on Louisville’s streets & alleys - along with oil sticks, house paint, cardboard, acrylics, markers, pencils, cheesecloth, magazine cutouts, etc. to create mixed media ‘paintings.’ Throughout his life, he was always doodling, but didn’t show his work publicly until he was in his fifties.
DeSanto says, “Making something from nothing is magical. When the image I’ve created touches another person’s heart, I feel a special connection that is beyond words. My art takes me to another place where thoughts, memories and feelings collide. I want my work to make people think, smile and laugh. My aim is to encourage people to question the absurd realities of life in America: systemic racism, mindless consumerism, and the accelerating, life-threatening climate crisis.”
ON VIEW MARCH 8th, 2023 - FEBRUARY 5th, 2024
Mark Anthony Mulligan is Louisville, Kentucky’s preeminent Outsider Artist. Known by many for his big smile and enthusiastic waves from the TARC bus benches along Bardstown Road (and beyond), Mulligan was also a highly prolific visual artist and songwriter. In the course of his life, he created thousands of artworks and hundreds of songs. A true tally of his creative output could never be determined, for the artist gave away, sold, or simply discarded many of his artworks on the streets of Louisville.
His visual art is iconic for its lively, vibrant cityscapes. With an obsessive attention to detail and exhaustive knowledge of Louisville’s geography, Mulligan’s scenes portray places both real and imagined, references to friends and frequented local businesses, and an affinity for corporate logos and shop signs. His songwriting focuses on similar themes. Mulligan was a frequenter of open mic nights, performing his signature a cappella renditions in a country music style.
Despite the challenges of mental illness and frequent houselessness, Mark had an infectious warmth and cheerfulness and a singular vision of the world around him. He had a deep love for Louisville, Kentucky. He passed away November 28, 2022 at the age of 59.