John Waters considers himself to be a writer first and foremost. He is best known for his satirical, often raunchy movies and considers his artwork to be an extension of his writing. As a visual artist, John Waters expresses himself with sculpture, photography, and installations that demonstrate his wit and sense of humor. He frequently…
Robert Gordy is considered one of the most original and creative Southern painters of the twentieth century. In the early 1980s, late in Robert Gordy’s notable career as one of New Orleans’ leading artists, he began to produce monotypes, by painting directly onto a printing plate. Increasingly, Gordy’s monotypes were expressionistic portraits presenting highly emotional…
Jonathan “feral opossum” Mayers’ was born where the Houma and Bayogoula tribes came together under the istrouma, le batôn rouge (the red stick). Baton Rouge and South Lousiana was more than a home for the artist; the swamps served as a playground and a source of continued inspiration for a young Mayers. The memories of…
Allison Stewart creates a body of work that occupies the space between landscape and organic abstractions. Materials and processes are significant and inform the imagery in this exhibition of mixed media work on canvas and paper. The artist works with various materials that attract and repel – such as acrylic, enamel, inks, tar, charcoal, metallic…
Demond Melancon is a sewer with extraordinary flair. Every year for Mardi Gras, he makes an elaborate feathered suit to compete with others in a centuries-old African-American tradition in New Orleans. And for the past few years, Demond has been telling the stories of Ethiopia through his designs. Image: Demond Melancon in his 2020 Mardi…
This week’s In The Studio is presented by acclaimed actor and New Orleans resident Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Suits, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan). We join him as he meets Demond Melancon, a fine artist from New Orleans who is also the Big Chief of a Black Masking Indian tribe, the Young Seminole Hunters. The Black…
Douglas Bourgeois‘ meticulously rendered work reveals incredible craftsmanship wedded with a masterful ability to express the artist’s vision through obsessive attention to detail. He combines his technical rigor with a far-ranging grasp of the iconography of late 20th and early 21st-century culture. As noted by art historian Isabelle Loring Wallace, Bourgeois “purposefully adopts certain hallmarks…
Jim Richard’s paintings are executed with uncommon elegance and subtlety and are in the long tradition of the rendering of domestic interiors. Richard creates a unique, private universe with its own instantly recognizable mixture of wild imagination and rigorous law and order. The artist’s treatment imbues his period rooms with social ironies often by providing…
Dawn DeDeaux’s monumental retrospective THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS will open October 2021 at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). The exhibition was previously scheduled for fall 2020. The retrospective will be the first comprehensive museum survey for this pioneering multi-media artist. The exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated hardcover catalog published by…
James Drake is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been honored with inclusion in both the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. In his artistic career spanning over 40 years, James Drake has explored political, social, and universal themes through the media of sculpture, video, installation, photography, and drawing. Kathryn Kanjo, chief curator at…
