After receiving his BFA from University of Louisville in 2005, James Robert Southard worked for years as a freelance photojournalist and artist. In 2008 he left for Pittsburgh for graduate school in Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 2011he was invited to international exhibitions such as the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Hel’Pitts’Sinki’Burgh in Finland, Camaguey Cuba’s 5th International Video Art Fest and he has participated in the Internet Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in Venice Italy. After receiving his MFA in 2011, James taught as a photography professor at University of Louisville, Kentucky School of Art and Carnegie Mellon University as a professor of fine arts. In the winter and spring of 2012, James continued his series Tooth and Nail with the collaboration of the city of Seoul, Korea at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon. Soon after he took his project to Maine where he was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, then later at MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, Yaddo Retreat in New York, Jentel in Wyoming, Vermont Studio Center and to the MASS MoCA residency in North Adams, MA.
He has since returned to academia by teaching photography at the University of Kentucky.

Originally from Cynthiana, Kentucky, Wylie Caudill has emerged as a distinguished artist, rooted in the verdant landscape of Lexington. He is presently this year’s official artist for the prestigious 150th Kentucky Derby.
Wylie's artistic narrative is woven with a distinctive imprint—a signature style he affectionately terms as "organic repetition." This unique aesthetic can be easily recognized throughout his portfolio.
His work can be seen not just in Kentucky but across the United States, vitalizing urban landscapes with murals that echo his artistic ethos.
Wylie's artistic journey began when he was quite young. Pokemon, trains, and dragons served as his inspiration and ignited his imagination. However, it was while at college that Wylie found his artistic niche using chalk to draw on the streets and sidewalks of his campus, that earned him the nickname 'the chalk guy’. Murals were a natural transition from there.
Today, Wylie's artistic creativity transcends the confines of concrete walls to work on canvases, bourbon bottles, apparel, and beyond. He likes to think his journey stands as a testament to the transformative power of passion, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to his art.

Kevin Nance is a photographer, arts journalist and poet living in Lexington, Kentucky. His photographs have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, Portland, Danville and Lexington, including at the Lexington Art League, the Lexington Public Library, the University of Kentucky Hospital and Arts Connect’s Mobile Gallery. His two collections of photographs and haiku are Even If (University of Kentucky Arts in HealthCare, 2020) and Midnight (Act of Power Press, 2022). As a journalist, Kevin’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Poets & Writers Magazine, the Lexington Herald-Leader, Ace Magazine, UnderMain and many other publications.
​He’s the host of Out & About in Kentucky with Kevin Nance and a co-host of the Kentucky Writers' Roundtable, both on RadioLex.