“Cartoonists take the salient features of the seemingly mundane which normally escape our attention, and blow them up to larger than life proportions, forcing us to acknowledge their emotive qualities.”
Jammin’ on Julia, the annual spring street party in the New Orleans Arts District takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday (April 5). Look for a dozen exhibitions of regional and national artworks augmented by live music in many galleries along Julia Street and nearby. As always, the wide selection of art will hold something to satisfy most taste.
Bunny Matthews new show “The People of New Orleans from A to Z” hangs at the Arthur Roger Gallery throughout March until April 19th, celebrating a closing reception on Saturday the 5th. The series reads like a children’s A to Z book of illustrations on uniformly 17×14 paper, ink, and colored pencil renderings. It is exciting to see cartoon caricatures on the walls at Arthur Roger. The surge of acceptance for comic-style drawing is a late 20th, early 21st century advent, owing nearly everything to New Orleanian George Herriman. Herriman’s “Krazy Kat” strip would be an inspiration to Robert Crumb and eventually Abstract Expressionist Philip Guston. Beginning with the lampooning caricature of Honore Daumier, Daumier’s caricatures have only entered into fine arts education post-feminism.