On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Headley Whitney Museum of Art in Lexington was crowded with people who had come to experience a retrospective exhibition of Kentucky artists Lynn Sweet and Rodney Hatfield. That the two are longtime friends added warmth and camaraderie to the occasion.  

Tag along as Undermain contributor Kevin Nance leads us through each collection, getting details of technique, media, and visions from Sweet and Hatfield. Videos and photos by Katie Axon.

Lynn Sweet

Lynn Sweet has been making art since 1970 - this exhibit features furniture that he designed and built as well as two-dimensional fresco, watercolor and acrylic abstract and landscape paintings. Sweet's unique fresco process mixes earth pigments, marble dust and acrylic polymer and is applied through a piping bag to produce rich, colorful works. For over 40 years, he supervised the wood shop at University of Kentucky School of Art. His works are in collections across the United States. (Source: Headley Whitney Museum of Art)

Rodney Hatfield

Coming from the lineage of the Hatfields and McCoys, musician and artist Rodney Hatfield, aka ArtSnake, grew up in Eastern Kentucky in a working class family, rich with diversity of lifestyle and characters that deeply influenced his music and visual arts careers. A self-taught artist, Hatfield paints original, unique, uninhibited figurative and abstract works with early inspiration from Chagall, Miro, and Klee. His work has been represented in Santa Fe, Ecuador, and Kentucky, and is in many collections, including those of actors Liam Neeson and the late Gene Hackman. Hatfield had a role in the 1989 action-thriller Next of Kin, starring Neeson.  Hatfield has been part of the blues scene since the 1960s as a vocalist and harmonica player for notable bands, The Hatfield Clan, Metropolitan Blues All-Stars, and Tin Can Buddha. (Source: Headley Whitney Museum of Art)