Educator, artist Lewis tells students art is about making an impact

Yahoo

15-02-2025

Daviess County High School continued commemorating Black History Month on Thursday, as students discussed art with Kenneth 'K.O.' Lewis, an Owensboro artist and educator who has exhibited across the Midwest.
Lewis, who is assistant principal at Newton Parrish Elementary School, began drawing at an early age as a child in Louisville. At Kentucky Wesleyan College, Lewis played football while also getting degrees in art education and visual arts.
Lewis said he knew he wanted to pursue art from the time he was 13 years old.
'You feel like you have to do it,' he said. 'It's
like breathing.'
Lewis said he initially had plans to become a college art professor before finding his place in public education.
'I had really big dreams, but those dreams led to opportunities to get into our schools,' Lewis said.
Lewis displayed several of his work to the students, including portraits of Emmett Till, Jackie Robinson and Robinson's wife, Rachel Robinson, Shirley Chisholm, Toni Morrison, Ruby Bridges, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Monetta Sleet, Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Marley and others. Lewis said his goal as an artist is to tell the stories of his subjects and to represent Black men and women who have had a cultural impact.
In culture, much of the emphasis on Black Americans is in sports and entertainment, which isn't representative of the impact Blacks have had on society, Lewis said.
'We are not seeing Black people beyond entertainment,' Lewis told the students. 'I have to represent Black people outside of art and music.'
Black activists and artists have affected not just the Black community, but also people from 'all walks of life and all colors,' Lewis said.
Lewis' portrait of Till became a complex work that took time to finish, Lewis said. Behind Till, Lewis painted newspaper articles and photos that show how the media covered Till's murder by two white men in 1955. Till's killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, but later admitted to killing Till, who was 14 years old at the time he was murdered.
'A lot of times, our stories are on the back burner,' Lewis said. 'We don't want to have these kinds of conversations because those conversations are very uncomfortable.
'Sometimes representation is important, because we need to know these kind of stories. We need to know how in the world (things like Till's murder) could happen.'
Lewis told the students to 'find out what you're passionate about, find out what you care about and fight until you can't fight no more' for that passion.