The Source – A Group Show of Artists Organized by Kyng Rhodes at Newfields

Speak No Evil, Marcus Robins

The Source

Ponder the source. Is it a place, a point of time, an initial urge, a spark of inspiration?

Such an open-ended concept. It conjures visions both personal and metaphysical. 

Perhaps an individual thinks of mother, father, child – love. On the wider scale of nature and the planet, words such as earth, its clay and garden –  its river of life.  Those spiritual among us may think of a creator. Those philosophical may imagine some rational origin of the universe itself. Humanists may think of the beginning of us; people, language, psyche and myth.  And the ways and the customs –  from first history, forward.  

And what is a source as compared to a soul. Are they not each both essential and original? 

Kyng Rhodes has organized a show of artists, The Source. It is an exhibition that speaks to his answer of such questions and displays artists whose works provide their answers as well.

The show is described in the exhibition statement that accompanies the work, a portion of which is quoted as follows,

“The Source brings together works that examine the identities, histories, and shared experiences of the African diaspora. Through painting, fashion, and other forms of artistic expression, the exhibit considers both inherited histories and contemporary realities...”

It features artwork by Lyndy Bazile, Phylicia Carr, Aaron Coleman, Deonna Craig, India Cruse-Griffin, Caleb Davis-Barney, Fitz, Gary Gee, Quintin Griffin, Michael Angelo W, Kevin Nance-West, Francis Nwosu, Andre Parnell, Dana Powell-Smith, Marcus Robins, Ash Robinson and Tania Wineglass. 

Pattern's Thread.

When approaching the glass wall entry and doors to the gallery, the visitor confronts an image of endurance and generative strength with the large oil on canvas painting, Duo Body Bather, by Lyndy Bazile. 

Bazile's colors are simplified with warm tones of orange and yellow in the background and cool blue and teal for the figure and the pool of water. A divided two has become a more powerful one in a nurturing water. Rest and peace seem to bend the two heads of the figure toward sleep, although their eyes remain open and aware. Combined they appear as mighty as a mountain, or at least a rock upon which a mountain is made.

Once inside the space of the gallery, the visitor is surrounded by a number of works that share a similar energy and color as contained in Bazile's painting.

Duo Body Bather, Lyndy Bazile

Phylicia Carr's Surrender shows a woman in a sinuous profile. Her body seems to support a canopy of natural bounty – flowers, leaves, fruit – as if she if the trunk and roots upon which the bounty is supported and conveyed. In addition to the woman's graceful lines, the canvas is enlivened with motion by a striped pattern of parallels running across a background of teal and yellow. The overall vibe of the work is one of reward – to accept and endure, and to flourish. 

The painting Soul Sista by Fitz also shows a woman at a center of a patterned color picture plane. The painting is a feisty and playful portrait of the protagonist named.  Fitz has created her, stylized her with the power of a comic book hero. How so? She is an alluring wild woman, dressed in bright orange, animal print, cut-off shorts and a top of only green leafy vines. 

Her make-up and golden arm bracelets only heighten the transfixing attention she commands.  She is pictured amid a busy background of orange, black, blue, brown and gold. Recurring chevron shapes point up and down, left and right, but try as they may, they cannot distract the eye from the figure herself.

Come see about me, Dana Powell-Smith

Dana Powell-Smith's acrylic painting, Come see about me, is a head and shoulders portrait of mainly orange, but also blue and green against a black background. The painting is a picture of pattern  and color more than a likeness or emotional study. The woman emerges from the her many pieces. Polka dots, flowers, stripes and color fields make up the planes and surface of the face and costume. The eyes stare out calmly at the viewer from the stylized orchestra of pattern of almost cubist design.

Andre Parnell's Waking Perceptions is a puzzle and a poem. A child is realistically portrayed in facial features and anatomy, although colored as if carved from marble or dusted by chalk. The child is the age of cherubs often portrayed in historical art. That age just beyond the blissful innocence of the baby years, yet before the school days of regimented learning.  

Atop the child's head are at least twenty newborn-looking babies – infants snuggling and sleeping all among each other, in a form that suggests either a hair style or hat at first glance. Atop them all, one among them has aroused from the peace of sleep, with head held high, eyes opened, surprised, and lips parted as if to speak or cry. 

Waking Perceptions, Andre Parnell

The larger main figure looks out from beneath what goes on above its head, that is, the stirring little one awakened, and presents pursed lips, a look of uncertainty, and a downward glance away from the viewer.  

Speak No Evil by Marcus Robins (top of page) is a dreamlike tableau created with the lifelike surrealism of a type seen in an artist like Salvador Dali. Components float, hover and arrange about the picture in a freeze-frame that can be experienced as a homage to the title of Maya Angelou's debut memoir from 1969. 

A gilded bird's cage confines a person's head within its shiny bars. The person's face is further restrained by a gilded mask that covers the nose and mouth.  Outside the shimmering prison, a bird is free, its wings fully extended in climbing flight. But is the freedom real?  Is the bird real?  It is mostly translucent as if carved from glass or ice, or formed of a soap bubble.  But with a girdle of gold  banded across its body, its form is dissected. It is both solid and see-through at the same time. 

The room of the cage and the person and the bird, is full of floating or falling flower petals. Perhaps a pointing, golden arrow is a clue. It is aiming toward the bottom of the picture, so perhaps the petals are pulled by gravity, falling down.

Heritage Visualized.

Walking further into the gallery, shared histories and experiences are revealed.  Two photographic prints by Francis Nwosu each convey with a simple visual clarity more open-ended themes. A hand reaches, grasping with out-stretched fingers in Ascension, and a hand cradles the warmth of bright light in Illumination I.

India Cruse-Griffin's Tangled Yet Not Broken is a mixed media sculpture of a young woman wrapped in a drapery of clothing, cloths-lines and clothes-pins. Her glance is cast downward, her eyes are almost closed, her arms are limp at her side. But her stature is standing, her head high on her shoulders. She seems resolute in her work. 

(This blog covered the  busy season of exhibition by Cruse-Griffin earlier this year, here) 

Daddy's New Car by Kevin Nance-West shows a car at a time when they were mighty and large, perhaps the late 1940s or early 1950s behind two boys at a time when they were  just growing and small. About the first years of school age, the boys face the viewer, and an uncertain future. It is a vision from the past and toward the future. A movement seems promised by the engine and the wheels and by the youth of the boys. 

(Nance-West's recent solo exhibit at Harrison Center was also covered by this blog, here)

More abstract is Aaron Coleman's It Was All So Simple, a 16-layer screen print. It is a mix of elements including text, color, graffiti marks. The location is an abandoned storefront, its security gate with a discarded car license plate and a fallen store-hours sign.  

The main message is the text in block letters which is a close paraphrase a song lyrics passed from generation to generation, from Barbara Streisand to Wu-Tang Clan. Of course song lyrics often quote the common questions asked of people about love and life and the true meaning of things. Perhaps it was just such a message painted on a wall that Coleman saw. Regardless of the source of inspiration, it lingers in its image of fading paint, a nostalgic mirage of better times.

Both abstract and real is Deonna Craig's mixed media Of Ceremony and Captivity: Scarred. At a distance it is a monochrome work a dark gray/black. Woodchip pieces, coated with paint the same color as the picture's ground –  a deep charcoal. 

Rows and rows and column upon column of the pieces – as if tick marks on a tally sheet – attempting to number the innumerable. Each piece unique and singular in itself, but nameless in the overall crowd. 

Is this a record of a thousand injuries and insults that have left their burns and scars, or a broad and somber totem of a people's endurance? Or is something holier or more transcendent imagined in the rite of darkness it portrays? 

An interesting ceramic piece, a portrait bust or mask of sorts by Gary Gee, is Head on a Swivel. 

A street smart man with wide open eyes that allow you to peer into the depths of his brain. Graffiti marks lurk in the shadows there, in contrast to the gold grill on several teeth of his wide grin. There is something uneasy in his baring of teeth. And it's certainly something different than happiness or a joke we see when we view the head from the rear. Eyeballs all over the red cap look out in all directions.  

Sticking to the streets, is Quintin Griffin's photograph, Red Line. A sunlit scene is shown from a slightly elevated, bird-on-a-wire view. A single figure, just one man alone, surrounded by some of his things on the bench next to him and the ground at his feet. 

A geometric jumble of repeating urban forms surround him – three hanging stop lights above, three pylons to the side, a row of glass panes behind him and countless car lot, light bulbs stringing across the picture. The replication and repetition of these inanimate things draw attention to the figure and his solitude. There is no wood or lawn on this Woodlawn Avenue high noon. Just concrete and asphalt, metal, brick and glass – and the flesh and blood of a breathing man.

Sight and Seen.

At the rear of the gallery space are a few pieces in which fashion and decoration step forward. 

Say What?, Ash Robinson

Say What? is a mixed media wall piece by Ash Robinson. It seems a head portrayed in the hard-edged, simple lines of a retro 1980s decoration. It even has a mirror element at the center face of the work, that absorbs the viewer and reflects their image back.  But unlike the shiny chrome and brass of '80s design, the mirror here is black. The surrounding forms and textures in black and white and brown vary from matte to tufted and fabric-like, to stained wood and louvered.

Da Genesis, an oil on canvas painting by Caleb Davis-Barney, is perhaps the most abstract of all artworks in the show. It has color fields, organically shaped of white, ivory, brown, black and blue. It is perhaps a natural world that inspires the work, with its moon-like sphere, cloud and flower forms, and the color of land and sea. Maybe, though, it is not so abstract at all, and it shows the days of creation at the beginning of time. Land, sea and moon are easily imagined. Perhaps the painting's patterns allude to the people created days later, and their later urge to beauty and decoration shared by all descendants  around the globe. 

Da Genesis, Caleb Davis-Barney

La Vierge au Long Cou by Tania Wineglass, is a glazed clay stonewear portrait plaque that is reminiscent of porcelain miniatures in the intimate connection and subject matter of personal portraiture. It's exotic title may reflect some broader meaning than the happiness the viewer can't help but share with the dazzle of the smiling lady portrayed.

High fashion is presented in Nigel Badman's footwear and handbag designs.  Italian pebble-grained leather, pony hair, suede and cotton are the components of the tasteful pieces. 

The Variegated Tote is a bag with an overall pyramidal form. This shape is clothed in three colors, in a checkerboard of squares and stripes. The palomino pony top handles blend seamlessly into the vertical stripes that band together at the bag's center, between the checks.   

The Princeton Loafer design appears both casual and elegant. Simple intersecting lines and the pebble grain, and the maker's mark embossed into the leather, complete a minimal and pleasing look.

Heritage, voice, pattern and fashion are all rolled into one in the final artwork in The Source.

Standing at the back of the show in a corner is War Is Always Ugly, a fashion design, or maybe a post modern textile, by Michael Angelo W.  

It is created – sewn together – with  cloth described as 'upcycled USGI military top-load bags and black ticking stripe cotton. '  Or said another way, the rough and ready fabric of sturdy work wear (or mattresses) and Army duffel bags.  

Weariness, toil and sacrifice are implied by the use of these materials, and a point of view, by its title.  But Michael Angelo W's ensemble of clothing is statement enough. We see power and style, loud and clear. 

War Is Always Ugly (detail), Michael Angelo W

The Source is a many-faceted display of art mediums and techniques. The show is displayed in the Brett Waller Gallery at Newfields through August 16. 

Mark Diekhoff, July 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

Kyng Rhodes Exhibit at Gallery 924

Woman of Paradise, Kyng Rhodes

...And There Was Light.

Kyng Rhodes, an Indianapolis-based artist and independent curator, has two major exhibits on display this summer at premier art locations in the city. First, in a solo exhibit of his own paintings and other works, Let There Be Light, at Gallery 924, and also as organizer of the group show of artists, The Source, at Newfields.

Both shows display a vibrant intensity, a celebration of color, culture and individual vision.

His own paintings and works on paper in the 924 show are influenced by the Book of Genesis and a plea from its earliest page, indeed its earliest lines – Let there be light. 

Let There Be Light, Kyng Rhodes, detail of exhibit at Gallery 924

Rhodes' artist statement that accompanies the show cites his thoughts, experiences and dreams as the compelling influences for his art. Of particular importance is the concept of divine light which indeed is present as a central design element in most of the artworks in his show. 

Many works each contain a golden ray of light from the heavenward top of the picture down to contain the people portrayed below. Like halos were used by religious painters in bygone art eras to depict the holiness of the subject and the sanctity of the activity contained, Kyng Rhodes uses the flash of divine light. He portrays a widening beam cascading down, as a similar unmistakable and recurring symbol –  the power of a light almighty. 

A powerful light to reveal, to enlighten, to transform. A healing power brighter than the noonday sun in the darkest night.

With the Light, Flowers Grow.

In the painting Flowers Grow Here Too, 2021, Rhodes has painted a man and three children. The man's head is entirely contained in the shaft of light creating a striking profile portrait. The contrast of his profile, looking away as if troubled by thoughts or somehow distracted, while the children are gathered in front of him looking forward with the innocence on their smiling faces. 

The light embraces them all in its ever-widening reach, perhaps comfort enough, but there is more reason for optimism in the picture. It is enhanced with Rhode's allusion to an Eden-like promised land of flowers. We see the motif in many of his works. 

A multitude of flowers surround the figures on both sides and at the bottom. And all the children, too, have crowns of flowers around their heads. In this picture, the garlands around the minds of the children seem to represent the spring of a carefree youth. Idealized perhaps, a portrayal of happy times and the pure, boundless potential within each child.

Flowers Grow Here Too, Kyng Rhodes

A garden of perfection is also depicted in Woman of Paradise, 2022 (image at top of page). Here though, not only flowers but other beautiful creatures – a pink swan, a butterfly, a humming bird, parrots, and the woman herself. 

The divine light beam is focused atop the woman's head and sits juxtaposed to appear as if part of an elaborate headdress of gold embroidery, peacock feathers and a brim of flowers.  A soaring idyllic creative force seems imagined  in this picture.

Bees in the Trap, 2021, is more mysterious in its symbolism. Three bees, with wings the color of Rhodes' recurring divine light, are surrounded by the exuberant, flowered foliage bordering the picture. 

That the bees are stuck seems implied by the title of the piece. Indeed one bee in particular, seems tangled in a strip of red ribbon. The flowers promised nectar, but was the promise broken by a trap of temptation? The blossoms seem to have retracted at the last moment to reveal the stripes and glue of deceit.

Bees in the Trap, Kyng Rhodes

And another symbolic narrative piece, told in a parable of painted iconic objects, is Hold Your Peace, 2025. 

The light beam in the picture is more a spotlight, of a slight greenish hue rather than gold. The picture's color and imagery creates an unease. An inverted arm thrust downward in the center of the light. The hand of the arm  flashes a peace sign with its fingers, upside down. At the center of the lights' circular beam at the bottom, two red roses, clipped, and an automatic pistol. 

Kyng Rhodes has many additional works in the show including large paintings and smaller mixed media works on paper. Viewing them you begin the grasp the vocabulary of his symbols and the variety of his subject matter.  

In Bruised Not Broken, 2021, Rhodes paints a child cherub sitting on a garden of grass that is also with infused with flowers. The child's angelic wings are the color of the divine light that splits the pure blue firmament of sky. The child looks down, oblivious to the bath in light from above, seemingly enraptured in the garden world of wonder beneath its feet. 

(left to right) Cherri's Charm, Gift of Janaee, and God Don't Play About Me,
Kyng Rhodes

Rhodes shows a series of portraits of women in his overall style of light and flowers. Cherri's Charm, 2025, Gift of Janaee, 2023 and God Don't Play About Me, 2026,  each reflects an individuality of sitter, through carefully observed dress, hair style and facial expression.    

Sly Little Guy II, 2024, is on loan from the Children's Museum, and seems a perfectly crafted art work for a younger audience. A young boy smiles while bathed in a beam of light. His eyes portray a hint of wariness, as he is surrounded by words and phrases as if standing in front of social media community chalkboard. Various affirmations and declarations seem to echo around him. Warnings, truth bombs and slogans swirl and compete with the stillness of the divine light that contains him.   

Part Two of this series to follow will review the Kyng Rhodes organized exhibit, The Source, now in the Brett Waller Gallery at Newfields.

Mark Diekhoff, June 2026   

See also:

https://www.kyngrhodes.com/

https://www.instagram.com/kyngrhodes/

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

BOLD: New Voices in Contemporary Art at Newfields

Re-Remembering V (Something Torn and New), by Wangari Mathenge

In an exhibit continuing through June 28, 2026, the  Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at Newfields presents thirteen works in the collection of the IMA. As described by the museum, the works "highlight (its) ever expanding and globally relevant contemporary art collection." 

Several are recent acquisitions of works by "cutting-edge contemporary" African artists. Those works, along with some works already in the museum's collection, make up nine of the thirteen that are shown for the first time in an exhibit by the IMA.

All the works represent  the IMA's "evolving contemporary collection and its commitment toward a global, inclusive, relevant future."

The show, BOLD: New Voices in Contemporary Art, includes a single work each of the included artists. The new acquisitions include works by African artists such as Wole Lagunju, Turiya Magadlela and Kimathi Mafafo.  Museum favorite artworks previously on display in the collection are also included, such as those by Vaughn Spann, Carlos Rolón and Samuel Levi Jones. 

The word bold describes not only the artworks, their ambitious scale in many cases, and the underlying artistic statement in others, but also the exhibition space itself and the innovative selection of works and color of the walls. 

Re-Remembering V (Something Torn and New), (top of page) a large oil on canvas by Kenyan artist Wangari Mathenge, presents an amazing and realistic portrait of a woman, perhaps standing, perhaps lying down. Her right arm raised and bent with the point of the elbow highest. The pose subtly hints at classic female portraits with hand behind head. 

The picture is an avalanche of color, pattern, object and shape, with a few carefully placed words, most noticeably, 'Hope'. 

Textiles and clothing, in a haphazard jumble, vie for the viewers attention with plaids, checks, stripes and organic and floral patterns. Books, toys, consumer items, produce such as an eggplant and lemons, and photos are scattered about completing a busy mishmash of elements that delight the eye. 

The title refers to a book, carefully painted near the woman's left hip amid the mountain of other objects; a bright orange rectangle of color near a round orange of the same hue and bottle of Coke. 

The detailed care of the painting's items makes the book's title clear, and thus the importance of its inclusion. 

Something Torn and New by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, subtitled An African Renaissance.  According to the accompanying exhibit notes, in the book the author “presents his concept of 'Europhonism,' or the replacement of native African names, languages and identities with European ones.”

With that in mind, looking at and experiencing Mathenge's remarkable picture, one can see the painter's woman as perhaps overwhelmed with the collision of Western and African traditions and socioeconomic systems both trying to survive, even triumph, at the same time in the same place. She does not look happy, or particularly sad. Perhaps reticent or wary, but like the word on the yellow banner near her upraised arm, possessing hope.

The Adoration of Benjamin, 2023, by Wole Langunju, a Nigerian artist, shows a current British celebrity and musician in a monumental portrait. The work, also an oil on canvas, is boldly pattered and colorful, not unlike Mathenge's Re-Remembering. 

According to the gallery notes, the artist is using the patterns and colors of a specific African tradition as a basis for his design. The wrapping of the subject, Benjamin, and his background space, in the colors and the patterns of Africa, as opposed to the posh, Western clothing or environs he is usually seen in, seems a repatriation in a way, by Langunju, of Benjamin. If not the man himself, his stylish beauty, his success, perhaps his charismatic power –  attributes of the painting, as well as the sitter.  

The Adoration of Benjamin by Wole Langunju

Or the painting could be something more akin to fan-fiction, in this case fan-art. Wherein the artist incorporates their favorites into the style of their overall work, such as Andy Warhol did with his many celebrity portraits, in the overall vein of his signature look.

Sisters in Unison I, 2024, by South African artist Kimathi Mafate, is a large hand- and machine-stitched embroidery on fabric piece in shades of rose, flesh, black and white. 

The piece is lush and extravagant in a decorative manner reminiscent of Gustav Klimt, yet here, so pretty in pink, all the artist's own. 

Two reclined women, intimately close, are stretched out in parallel poses, and look out with sideways glances at the viewer.

 

Sisters in Unison I by Kimathi Mafate

There is a splendor and perfume to the opulent scene. The power of the gaze of the women is balanced by the soft billowing curves of the fabric which surrounds them, the overall soft and feminine color scheme, and the many flower blossoms that almost appear summoned by the gesture of their hands.

In addition to many additional large and engaging two-dimensional pieces, a large sculptural vessel in painted fiberglass, Ndebele Abstract, 2023, by Esther Mahlangu. The Ndebele tradition is described by the exhibition notes as “an art form celebrated for its bold geometric patterns, vibrant colors, and intricate symmetry .”  All those attributes are contained in Mahlangu's vessel, creating a stunning overall effect. 

Ndebele Abstract by Esther Mahlangu

In a way, bold, vibrant, colorful and patterned are components seen in some part in most every work in the show.  From the dazzling, fluid video work, Rabbit Hole, 2011, by Jacco Olivier to the massive show-stopper Rover, 2021, by Vaughn Spann, whose assemblage, which due to the gargantuan size, is experienced as more an installation that a multi-media painting. As show-stoppers usually are,  it is big and bold.   

Mark Diekhoff, February 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

50 Years of Robert Indiana's LOVE at Indianapolis Museum of Art

Mike, Mark and Eddie w/ LOVE by Robert Indiana at IMA, 1971

Art at First Sight?

Love can be lasting or fleeting, casual or serious. It can be selfless or controlling, narcissistic or empathetic. The affection of Indianapolis, or at least the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for the work of Robert Indiana could be described as obsessive and possessive, at least when it comes to a certain 9000 pound masterpiece of a sculpture by the artist.  

The year 2025 marked the official 50-year anniversary of the permanent acquisition of LOVE, a massive outdoor public art piece of oxidized steel, measuring 12 feet high and wide.  It was purchased by friends of the museum for the museum for a reported $75,000 in 1975. 

If 1975 was indeed the marriage year, then the IMA and LOVE had been shacked-up during a long engagement. LOVE first came to town in 1970 for the opening exhibit of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its new Krannert Pavilion on 38th Street.

It was a match made in heaven, desire at first sight. A love born, perhaps, more of mirroring than opposites attracting, given the artist's adopted name. For a Hoosier to love Indiana is not so much of a stretch. 

Whatever the source, Robert Indiana's LOVE would infatuate not only our city and state, but the entire country, and the world beyond. As demonstrated with the Beatles' All You Need Is... song from 1967 and the Summer of, yes, Love, the world seemed eager for a mass hysteria hit off a certain four letter word.  And although the day-glo of psychedelia was dimming just those few summers later, the geo-political globe was still afire with assassination, riot, war and poverty. The Beatles, the bed-ins and the Sunshine Supermen had not yet dug us out of that hole.

Folks hadn't given up, though, and still seemed eager in the '70s, that self-help decade, to aspire to the strongest of positive emotions that love obviously is.  

Despite the pits we lived in, we yearned and hoped and dreamed of it still. The most hopeful and universal and eternal human emotion that there is when all is said and done.

As William Burroughs wrote in his journal just a day before he died in 1997,

“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”

Burroughs capitalized all the letters of the word in his journal, like Robert Indiana did in his sculpture almost thirty years earlier. Thus emphasized, the word was made a symbol or a sign, art or not, an eventual epitaph with its lopsided 'O' to be scorned or adored. 

The 1970s would bring stagflation and downsizing, lay-offs and unemployment lines. Many were left yearning for better times while stuck in long gas lines in hulking gas guzzlers already extinct.

Robert Indiana had caught a bottle of lightning and was ready to ride that zeitgeist, with just a vibe and his signs, to his own promised word.  A word most potent, with a power that never grows tired plodding through the tin pan alleys of Madison Avenue, and out onto an endless and thundering road. Robert Indiana was on the human highway that everybody wants. Paved with money and a thing called LOVE.

Love in Two and Three Dimensions.

Robert Indiana created a two-dimensional prototype of sorts, for the later, greater sculpture of the same name with his LOVE painting created in 1966. By 1967, the Herron Museum of Art had acquired the painting for their permanent collection. The Herron Museum evolved into the Indianapolis Museum of Art in the following years, and the painting is now at IMA/Newfields. 

It is a large 6 foot square work with that word in red letters and green to the lower left fill, blue in the upper and right fill. The enclosed hollow of the tilted 'O' is filled with green. 

In a Sunday Star Magazine article by Gretchen Wolfram in the September 8, 1968, Indianapolis Star, Robert Indiana called his style of painting 'hard-edged' as opposed to pop. 

One can judge for oneself. The painting is on current display in the contemporary galleries at Newfields. 

Looking at it now, with the passage of time, Indiana's imagery has obtained a ubiquitous familiarity as common as a Warhol soup can. The hard-edged distinction has lost its edge as a cliche in art world circles, and so pop the painting is today, at least for me. 

The sculpture, though, is another thing altogether.  

Lacking the comic book colors, made of Cor-ten steel, massive, imposing with a gorgeous brown patina, it transcends the various art movements in motion at the time of its creation. Not quite Neo-Dada with its simplistic clarity. Not quite minimal in the brashness of its snap and crackle. Yet not quite pop in the abstracted meaning of the sentimental romanticism of its most obvious message. 

LOVE has obtained a gravitas that far exceeds even the heyday of its overnight sensation. It still boxes above its own heavyweight class of fellow contenders like Donald Judd and Richard Serra. 

From the foot of its 'VE,' looking up-close and personal, it possesses an eternal solemnity that speaks volumes, not just one four-letter word. 

Pre Nup and Post Nup – 1970 through Today.

LOVE was first seen in Indianapolis in 1970. Indeed its first public exhibition anywhere occurred here at the inaugural exhibit for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, at its then brand-new Krannert Pavilion, on 38th Street. 

The museum was built on the grounds of the former Oldfields estate built by Hugh McKennan Landon circa 1913 atop former farm fields, and later sold to Josiah K. Lilly Jr. of Lilly Pharmaceutical and the Lilly Endowment, in 1932. 

The Robert Indiana sculpture was just one of seven outdoor public sculptures on display on the museum grounds for the occasion. The exhibition called Seven Outside ran from October 1970 through January 1971. Other artists included Alexander Calder, George Rickey and David Smith. But Indiana's was the breakout work. And, as it would turn out, the most enduring.

LOVE made a big splash. High school kids and museum staff, alike, climbed all over it as it sat on the lawn like a piece of playground equipment. Everybody seemed to want a piece of Indiana's LOVE. He was claimed, by both Tech High School and another one in Mooresville, as one of their own. 

Robert Indiana did admit to a nomadic youth moving across the state. Quoting the Star Magazine article mentioned above,

“(Robert Indiana) claims New Castle as his birthplace and he lived in at least 21 other Indiana towns, Mooresville among them, by the time he was 17...

...he stuck around Indianapolis long enough to be graduated second in the Class of '46 from Arsenal Technical High School, where his main interests centered around art, Latin and journalism.

...he was photography editor of the ...yearbook and considered a career in photography. Also, he won a scholarship to attend the Saturday classes at Herron.”

Indiana discussed the origins of LOVE in an October 21, 1970, Indianapolis News article and interview with Peggy Jackson. He discusses how his first artworks were found object assemblages, a style and technique practiced by a large number of artists in the the mid-to-late 1950s. He 'found' some 19th century stencils, which were a basis of the painting, and later sculpture, LOVE. 

About the Indianapolis Museum of Art adoption of his imagery as their quasi trademark or logo at the time, Indiana said, quietly to Jackson,

“Yes, I'm happy that the museum is using LOVE as their symbol... People care about love. I don't think many people care about art...”

So proud of the sculpture, was the IMA, that in May 1971, it was relocated from its Seven Outside location, to the center of a circular lawn at the entrance to the museum. The Indianapolis Star, on May 16, 1971, explained,

“Museum officials believe that the sculpture will provide a proper mood for delegates planning to attend sessions at the International Conference of Cities in the museum later this month. 

The sculpture, on indefinite loan from the...artist, will be moved back to its regular spot on the grounds after the conference.”

By the autumn, the sculpture would travel out East to spend time first installed at Boston's City Hall Plaza, and then in New York City in Central Park from November 1971 through January 1972. 

Fanfare ensued, and the New York Times reported that “No one had an unkind word to say for LOVE.” and that the sculptures placement in the city marked “a great day for New York.”

LOVE by Robert Indiana at Indiana National Bank plaza, 1972

Upon its return to Indianapolis in February, 1972, LOVE would be placed at the downtown Indiana National Bank plaza, and unveiled on Valentine's Day. It would return to IMA after about 6 weeks. A concurrent exhibit of Indiana's work occurred in the bank's lobby during the period.

In a detailed front page Indianapolis News column on February 14, 1972, writer Marion Simon Garmel spoke to Indiana about his LOVE just installed and unveiled at INB. About it's permanent location in Indianapolis, he said,

“I would love to see it in my home town, which is New York City now."

But also,  

"...I would like to see it on top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on a revolving pedestal. That would put Indiana back on the map.”

Garmel records that the remark was said “only half in jest.” 

She also records his comments about his ties to the state, affection for its traditions and its inspiration on his work,

“Born Robert Clark...in New Castle, he lived in 21 Indiana towns before he was 17, shuttling back and forth between divorced parents.”

And also,

“He collects James Whitcomb Riley memorabilia...and refers to Vinalhaven, the island off the coast of Maine where he maintains a summer studio, as 'My little Brown County.' ”

Garmel writes that Indiana's work is rooted in memories of growing up in Indiana, citing a specific example,

“The colors in his original LOVE painting...are drawn from his memory of standing on East 38th Street and watching a red-and-green Phillips 66 service-station sign flash against the blue sky.”

Garmel quotes the artist's description of his motivations in creating his work,

“I have a passion for documentation...I'm really documenting the times. I think that's what my signs are all about. I'm celebrating American places and American ideals and, who knows, next I might celebrate American people. But I don't know what form that will take.”

LOVE's reputation only continued to grow, and a momentum continued to build, in the following months and years. 

The December 13, 1972, Indianapolis News reports on a New York City show, Robert Indiana: Celebration of a Decade, that contained many new iterations of Indiana's LOVE theme. The show was reviewed by critic John Canaday in the New York Times, as quoted in a Marion Garmel Brush Strokes column in the Indianapolis News on December 13, 1972,

“It is simply not fair that these variations (of Indiana's LOVE) – hardly variations, more like repetitions – should make such a sparkling show...”

On January 26, 1973, the US Postal Service issued a first class stamp of Indiana's LOVE design just in time for Valentine's Day. 

Promoted as “a special stamp for someone special,” by the post office, it was an overwhelming success, with over 300 million 8-cent stamps issued. The success also inspired the the 'love' themed stamps issued annually by the post office almost every year since 1982.

The IMA and the state's infatuation affair with Robert Indiana would continue over the following decades. IMA mounted exhibitions that included Indiana such as Painting and Sculpture Today 1974, and the solo shows Robert Indiana, 1978 and Essential Robert Indiana, 2014, among many others.

 The IMA would acquire the monumental sculpture series NUMBERS (0 through 9), 1980-83, in 1988. 

Numbers (5) and Numbers (0) by Robert Indiana
installed at IMA entrance at Newfields to honor 
anniversary of Indiana's LOVE by the museum 

Indiana Obelisk was commissioned for the entrance of the new Indiana State Museum building by then Governor Frank O'Bannon in 2000, and was unveiled on April 9, 2008.

Time Passages of Love and Art.

LOVE has been restored in recent years after many years displayed out-of-doors. It rests inside out of the rain and the cold, but out of the sunshine too. People, kids and adults alike, aren't crawling all over it anymore. That dance is done. 

Maybe the museum should order a replica to be placed outside as was intended for the original. And allow that interaction on the grass beneath the sky. Like Florence, Italy did with its David. The precious one inside, like a hermit sealed in the protection of a retirement home. But outside, in Florence, David has two clones, like twins that are out and about with the crowds and the fountains and the birds.

LOVE, Robert Indiana, 1970 outside at IMA, postcard image

I started my research into LOVE, the sculpture, after I came upon a Kodachrome slide in my father's old things a few years ago (image top of page). My brother and me, and our same best friend. 

The Summer of 1971, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Three boys, a sculpture and the Krannert Pavilion. 

All our backs were to LOVE in the snapshot. Indeed, I don't really remember seeing the sculpture at all at the time. Robert Indiana was way over my head. This was my first visit to an art museum.

Dad had taken us boys along as he wanted to see the Russells and the Remingtons on display. That was his recollection, anyway, when I asked him about that day he took us to the museum. 

All I really remember about the art museum from that day, is the stairways we climbed, and upon reaching a landing, a series of vibrant Op Art paintings that played hippie-colored tricks on my eyes. Orange and flashing, bending tricks.

But LOVE wasn't through with me yet, even if I blocked it from my memory or just didn't notice the first time. 

By a couple years later, at the Block's Department Store at Southern Plaza, I saw the shiny chrome of a simple four letter word, its gleam and dance of light bending across its curving edges. 

It was the size of a door-stop, and it cost 8 bucks. This was before I had a job or even my paper route, so that was a lot of money.

A 50-something-year-old Mother's Day present still sits in a place of honor aside engagement and wedding photos, baby pictures, and other treasured gifts. It's not beat up too bad at all. It still shines. 

Mark Diekhoff, Valentine's Day, 2026

See also - Robert Indiana Interview, 1978

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