Exhibition Dates: April 3 – April 24, 2004
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 3 from 6–8 pm
Gallery Location: 434 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present digital works in progress from Dawn DeDeaux’s new series titled Afterlife. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from April 3 – April 24, 2004. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist in attendance, on Saturday, April 3 from 6-8 pm.
Dawn DeDeaux, Elephant Ear #2, 2004-07. Enhanced digital images. 20 x 16 inches, 23 x 19 inches framed.
Dawn DeDeaux is best known for large scale works addressing social issues, but she says of this series, “It is a humble study of the small.” The works in the exhibition are digital studies of objects discarded from households and nature collected on daily walks in her New Orleans neighborhood. Her new digital studies are documents of objects recycled or resurrected – computer-manipulated images revealing the intrigue of objects past their prime. Subjects include decaying leaves, crumpled newspapers, broken figurines and toys. DeDeaux dimensionalizes the works by cutting the images into sections and reassembling them into floating grids to mirror both the molecular breakdown of matter and the pixilation of the electronic media she employs.
The portfolio includes groupings of work which document stages of transformation and also mandalas created from still frames of DeDeaux’s animated films related to this Afterlife series. The finalized work will premiere next year as a multimedia installation at the MAC Art Center in Dallas and will include digital images together with digital animations and media sculptures.
DeDeaux was the first artist in Louisiana to heavily utilize electronic technology; beginning with the creation of her CB Radio Booth media sculpture works and her outdoor environment works which incorporated video/film projections on buildings in 1975. She is considered a pioneering artist in her creation of synchronized multi- screen film surround environments such as the work Face of God which premiered at the Olympics and was shown at the Arthur Roger Gallery in 1996. She is the winner of the international Montage 93 competition for work which best merged art and technology. In her current work Afterlife she has once again applied sophisticated digital technology.
Dawn DeDeaux is one of America’s pioneering artists in new media. Her work is the in-depth subject of the concluding chapter of Discipline and Photographs by James Hugunin of the Chicago Art Institute. Works by Dawn DeDeaux have been exhibited widely, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Baltimore Museum of Contemporary Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Peace Museum, Chicago and Delfina Trust in London, England.