DOUGLAS BOURGEOIS’S ART feels disarmingly intimate. Beyond the rapt technique and startling syntax, what engages your notice ultimately is the circumscribed universe he creates – and further, the abiding spiritual tone of that universe. His paintings suggest some otherworldly realm – usually a lyricized south Louisiana – that exists only in reverie.
For this project, Leventi shot more than 40 opera houses in almost 20 countries, from the tiny (Teatro di Villa Aldrovandi Mazzacorati, capacity: 80) to the mammoth (The Metropolitan Opera, capacity: 3,975). The work is being exhibited at Rick Wester Fine Art (with prints up to seven and a half feet wide) starting May 7 and is being released as a book by Damiani in June 2015.
Coastal Paintings is David Bates’ eighth exhibition with the gallery and consists of small- to large-scale oil paintings on canvas and panel. Employing his distinctive bold style, Bates continues to document the people and landscapes of the Gulf Coast. His portraits of fishermen and coast natives avow his esteem for his subjects and their absolute fortitude. Like them, his striking landscapes evoke a quiet solitude, yet often with hints of recovery from or preparation for more ominous times. Equally resilient and captivating are the Magnolias and other flora realized by his characteristic and masterful thick, lush strokes.
Lin Emery’s suite of new works at Arthur Roger Gallery through April 25 confirms her position as New Orleans’ premier sculptor. For decades, Emery, who was born in 1928, has gifted us with gorgeous, glinting mechanical sculptures that are so exquisitely balanced that they bob and wave in ballet-like motion with every breeze.
Artist John Alexander talks about his artistic production over the past decade. An SMU alumnus who studied under Roger Winter, John’s early work was rooted in experiences from his native environment around Beaumont, Texas. While a graduate student at SMU in the early 1970s, John worked as a preparator at the Meadows Museum, where he spent a good deal of time hanging and rehanging the works of Francisco de Goya. The satirical prints of Goya have remained for Alexander a source of inspiration throughout his career and can be seen most clearly in his images of people who assume animal characteristics and in the tension that hides just beneath the surface of his landscape paintings.
