Suspected thieves arrested stealing art from Mellwood Art Center

By Alexis Mathews

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WLKY) — During an event at the Mellwood Art Center on Sunday, surveillance cameras captured four suspected thieves stealing artwork.

The incident happened just before 3am and the video shows one person carrying a large canvas and another returning to retrieve a second piece.

Another video from the parking lot then shows the group stealing $6,000 worth of artwork belonging to street artist Jason Lois.

“There was an outpouring of people trying to share this story, find out who these people were and bring them to justice,” Lois said. “I was amazed at the positive outcome of this case.”

The Mellwood Art Center immediately notified Lois, a police report was filed and LMPD is investigating.

“They’ve been great and done more than I expected, they’ve done everything they can to try to resolve this issue,” he said.

The thefts came days before Lois has two back-to-back art shows. A solo show at the art center on Friday, titled “Almost Famous,” is a nod to her successful street art career. Her work is also scheduled to be exhibited at a group show in Los Angeles.

Fortunately, the stolen paintings are not part of Friday’s gallery, and since guests will see 42 other works of art handcrafted by Lois, he chooses to take an optimistic attitude.

“The initial emotion is anger, because I put my heart and soul into each piece, but then you let it go,” he said. “If I never get it back, that’s it. If, because of what happened, it brought more people to see what I do who didn’t know who I was and didn’t know the art that I created, I’m going to take that blessing in disguise and try to make something positive out of that negative.”

Despite the unfortunate situation, what can’t be stolen is talent and creativity, but Lois still takes this as a lesson.

“I’m going to learn from this and get better, and it’ll probably make me work harder and work harder,” he said. “I think there’s some things I’m going to do safety-wise to prevent this from happening in the future.”

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