Richard Jolley: Transformations
The first complete monograph on sculptor Richard Jolley, an artist best known for his works in glass, but also an experimenter with paper and mixed-media installations.
“John Alexander: 35 Years of Works on Paper” —Edmund P. Pillsbury, Ph.D.
While John Alexander’s achievement as a painter continues to win accolades, his prowess as a consummate draftsmen has only recently emerged. This latent recognition should come as no surprise. Invariably, painters resort to paper to record an impression, producing works that make up in spontaneity what by intention they lack in finish.
“Louisiana Visions”, The Times-Picayune
The current exhibit at Arthur Roger Gallery is a sure crowd pleaser. Francis X. Pavy, Debbie Fleming Caffery and Elmore Morgan Jr. are all Louisiana art legends long-known for their stylish depictions of the Bayou State beyond city limits.
Douglas Bourgeois: Baby-Boom Daydreams
The fascinating work of a figurative artist whose meticulously detailed paintings and sculptural assemblages present icons of popular culture as well as people from Louisiana’s diverse population.
“Uncovering The Soul Stone: A Visit with Painter Francis Pavy”
The ancient cities of Italy and Greece were built around a center, the mundus, which was a pit covered by a great stone, called a “soul stone.” On certain days, the stone was removed, and the spirits of the dead rose from the pit which established the city’s relationship to its ancestral spirits.
Chihuly: Drawing
Chihuly Drawing chronicles five decades of Dale Chihuly’s work on paper. This dynamic collection is a fascinating study of variety. Many of the drawings are drenched in thick, bold layers. Others are more elusive—just a hint of form sketched with a fistful of pencils or a confidently manipulated charcoal. Over the years his style has evolved, becoming more abstract, more elaborate, and, in some cases, much larger. But there are no rules; a technique that Chihuly favored a decade before may resurface again. The excitement of Chihuly’s work on paper is in its unpredictability, and that in two dimensions Chihuly is free to let his grandest schemes come to fruition. Above all, Chihuly’s work on paper revels in the monumental creativity that is essentially Chihuly.
“A New Place to Dwell: Seeking Douglas Bourgeois’s Magic Realism”, Estill Curtis Pennington Essay
In 1981 Douglas Bourgeois painted Blue Christmas, a work featuring Elvis Presley lying back on a bed beside a fully lit and decorated Christmas tree. Hanging in the blue-draped window just behind him is a bushy holiday wreath.
“The Earthly Delights of Bourgeois’s America”, Dan Cameron Essay
Douglas Bourgeois hails from St. Amant, Louisiana, where he has lived and worked since 1981 and where his family has resided for several generations. That would seem to make him the kind of artist who, some years ago, would have been labeled “regional.”
“Baby-Boom Daydreams: The Art of Douglas Bourgeois”, David S. Rubin Essay
Although he was raised on a small farm in the rural southern Louisiana community of St. Amant, Douglas Bourgeois grew up at a time when living in a remote area did not necessarily mean isolation from the cultural trappings of the big city.
“Whitfield Lovell”, UTNE
In 1993 Whitfield Lovell sought respite from New York City at an artist’s retreat in an old Italian villa. But when he arrived, Lovell, an African American, was horrified to discover grotesque caricatures of black men and women decorating the building’s interior. Turns out the villa had been built by a prominent Italian slave trader with unusual tastes. Taking a personal and artistic risk, he began expressing his reaction in charcoal directly on the villa’s walls.