In his new series of paintings Willie Birch presents life-size and over life-size portraits of street musicians and residents of his 7th Ward New Orleans neighborhood as well as from other neighborhoods throughout the city. The portraits are profoundly humane and often provocative and humorous considerations of the lives of the people in the artist’s community. “Representational paintings of real people are another way for me to bind with my community. I give them immortality,” says Birch. “I see my work and my art as a storyteller. Part of what I do is to document the world in which I live — my history and existence as a human being.”