Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4 from 6–8 pm
Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999
From December 4th through December 24th the Arthur Roger Gallery will present an exhibition of paintings along with a wall memorial installation by Jacqueline Bishop. The opening of the exhibit will be on Saturday, December 4th from 6 to 8 p.m.
Jacqueline Bishop, Terra #227: Bronze-Olive Pigmy. 1999, Oil on wood with found objects. 3 x 3 inches (approximate).
Basing her imagery on frequent trips to remote regions in North, South and Central America including the Amazon rain forest, Jacqueline Bishop creates beautiful yet disturbing landscapes. Her paintings celebrate the beauty of nature but also convey a sense of impending doom. The fragile interconnection of nature is a central theme in her work.
The exhibit will include a major wall memorial installation “Terra”, consisting of numerous small bird portraits, natural objects, drawings and collages arranged as a single composite landscape.
Jacqueline Bishop intends the wall memorial as “a landscape of the human conscience and memory and our place within the natural world.” The wall memorial will be accompanied by a soundscape entitled “200 Birds” created by New York composer Chris Becker specifically for this exhibition.
In her vividly colored paintings there are references to the destruction of nature. The paintings are meticulously and even caressingly executed to achieve a quality suggesting hope. The imagery in her nature paintings is a metaphor for the inner self-connecting with the outer world. The paintings reflect a personal struggle for hope in the face of potential devastation. The work is unquestionably visionary.
Jacqueline Bishop completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Tulane. She has exhibited widely in the United States and also in Brazil. Her interest in the Americas began when she lived in the Dominican Republic in 1975. In recent years Jacqueline Bishop has regularly traveled with ornithologists and scientists to the endangered jungles of South America. In 1998 Jacqueline Bishop published Em Memoria Chico Mendes: A Tribute on the Ten Year Anniversary of His Death. Chico Mendes was a Brazilian rubber plantation worker who was assassinated in 1988 for his efforts to stop the destruction of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. In conjunction with the exhibition Jacqueline Bishop will present a copy of her book to Mendes’ widow, Ilzmar at a talk at Loyola University.
A walk through with the artist is also scheduled on Saturday December 18 at 2:00 p.m.