Exhibition Dates: November 4 – December 23, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 4 from 6–8 pm
Gallery Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present Queen of Mirth, an exhibition of work by Stephen Paul Day. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from November 4 – December 23, 2017. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist in attendance on Saturday, November 4 from 6-8pm. This exhibition is presented in conjunction with the New Orleans Triennial, Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, opening November 18.
Are You From Dixie?, 2017 | Wood and mixed media | 29 x 17 1/4 x 5 inches
The Queen of Mirth represents the mother of all things creative, bearing an interdisciplinary exhibition based on the new romantic notion that art should be entertaining and challenging, and that which is amusing has as much potential to effect change as that which is political. From the viewpoint of two young children – a twin boy and girl – the gallery transforms into a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ surrealism.
Day’s practice involves accumulating information, reimagining outcomes, and installing a system of visual information that draws from historical reference while addressing contemporary aesthetic language. His work engages layers of incompatible ironies, historical inconsistencies, and political incorrectness. New Orleans, a veritable nineteenth century playground, serves as his main inspiration. He employs his many and varied skills to produce museum-like exhibitions which appear to have been contributed to by many hands. There are no material boundaries to his work, which often includes cast iron, wood constructions, bronze castings, glass and porcelain. Queen of Mirth, Stephen Paul Day’s eighth exhibition with the gallery, was conceived of two years ago during the artist’s residency at Kohler.
Stephen Paul Day was born in 1954. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Louisiana State University in 1977, and then attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris where he received a Diplôme Technique in lithography, intaglio and stained glass in 1980. In 1984, Day received a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture and glass at Louisiana State University where he also studied video. In 1985, he was awarded a residency at the Experimental Glass Workshop in New York City. In 1988, he was invited to help develop a visionary new summer academy in Frauenau, Germany where he remains an instructor and advisor of the school to present day. In 1990, he received an Emerging Artist Award from the Pilchuck Glass School, where he later taught for years alongside German glass artist Erwin Eisch. Day has received many other prestigious awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Grant; a Médaille de Bronze for the Salon du 14eme Arrondissement, Paris, France; and a career grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation for an installation exhibited during the 2008 Prospect.1 Biennial in New Orleans. Day has exhibited in the United States as well as internationally, and his work is in many collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Corning Museum of Glass, New York; the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Quebec, Canada; the Kunokube Glass Museum, Nagahama, Japan; and the Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Stephen Paul Day lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana and Berlin, Germany.