Opening Reception: Saturday, December 6 from 6–8 pm
Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present “Dots, Loops, Stripes and Finches,” an exhibition of recent paintings by Nicole Charbonnet rendered in acrylic and mixed media. The exhibition will be on view from December 6th to December 27th at the Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia Street. The artist will be present at the opening reception hosted by the gallery on Saturday, December 6th from 6 to 8 pm.
Nicole Charbonnet, Batman. 2008, acrylic, plaster and paper on canvas. 72 x 60 inches.
Nicole Charbonnet’s paintings, layered with overlapping images, textures, chalky washes and translucent paper and fabrics, evoke images and ideas that surface in one’s recollection of memories. This method of layering images is reminiscent of memories that have accumulated over time. Details are lost in some images while others remain visible. This is suggestive of the images in a memory that are sometime clear and other times unclear.
In “Dots, Loops, Stripes and Finches” Charbonnet incorporates images and textures associated with the past, continuing her interpretation of memories and encouraging the audience to build their own connections and associations to the imagery found in the paintings. Some figurative elements are inspired by other artists like Manet, Audubon and Pollock, while other images are stills from movie genres such as Film Noir and Westerns as well as other motion pictures such as O Brother, Where Art Thou, and The Wizard of Oz. For Charbonnet, these images serve as a metaphor for the phenomenon of recollection simulating the process of memory itself.
Charbonnet explains, “Remembering furnishes a vantage point from which to survey possible paths and prospects. Scavenging and interpreting the past open a gateway to the future. These paintings which are born out of a kind of backwards glance will not only serve to illuminate the past, but also encourages interpretations which function as starting points themselves.”
Born in New Orleans, Nicole Charbonnet received her BA from the University of Virginia in 1988 and her M.F.A. from Boston University in 1991. She also studied at the Academic Goetz in Paris, France and the Cleveland Institute of Art’s school in Lacoste, France.