“Pride of Place brings Arthur Roger’s donated collection to NOMA,” New Orleans Museum of Art

arthur roger

[Arthur] Roger’s personal collection of more than eighty paintings, photographs, and sculptures reflects the gallery’s storied forty-year history as well as Roger’s skill and sophistication as an art collector. Bringing together artworks Roger has collected from the 1970s through today, Pride of Place unfolds as an evolving narrative about place, identity, and belonging in New Orleans’ contemporary art scene over the course of the last four decades.

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“HORROR VACUI: An Interview With Douglas Bourgeois,” The Iron Lattice

In spite of his relative seclusion in rural Louisiana, Douglas Bourgeois never wants for inspiration. On almost every inch of wall space in his simple cottage in St. Amant hangs the artwork of his friends and contemporaries. His art studio, lined with orderly shelves of assorted objets, could double as a curio shop. His curiosity lies at the heart of his creative vitality; the bold colors and elaborate and peculiar details of his paintings indicate a man who is dazzled by the world around him.

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“Dawn DeDeaux: Our Future,” New Orleans Art Review

I CLEARLY REMEMBER walking through Dawn DeDeaux’s installation MotherShip III: The Station near the intersection of Elysian Fields and St. Claude Avenues. It was close to the end of the biennial (as it was structured then) in the late afternoon, overcast, with temperatures in that New Orleanian limbo area between warmth and chill.

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“Review: Luis Cruz Azaceta’s geometric paintings at Arthur Roger Gallery,” Gambit

On the Brink seems an unusual title for a geometric abstract painting show. The crisp geometry of traditional art deco, op art or minimalist design, like the sleek lines of modern architecture and furniture, all epitomize a kind of optimistic rationalism, but Luis Cruz Azaceta was forever marked by the chaos that characterized the Cuban revolution and his life as a youthful refugee.

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Jonathan “feral opossum” Mayers: L’Éparpillage

jonathan mayers

L’Éparpillage is Jonathan “feral opossum” Mayers’ first exhibition with the gallery. Recent, small- to medium-scale, vibrant paintings depict metaphorical beasts amid meticulously rendered Louisiana landscapes. The mysterious creatures – somewhat wicked, somewhat charming – were born of the artist’s familiarity with Louisiana folklore, and serve to illustrate his opinion pertaining to the reality we live in. The haunting, curious images also address the current fragility of our ecosystem, most specifically the southern region of Louisiana.

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Luis Cruz Azaceta: ON THE BRINK

luis cruz azaceta

ON THE BRINK is Luis Cruz Azaceta’s ninth exhibition with the gallery. The recent works on canvas, which range from kaleidoscopic to austere, present an enigmatic state of affairs, a series of journeys on the edge of order and chaos. Themes of disbalance, dystopia, conflict and passage are boldly rendered in the artist’s distinctive, abstractive style. The paintings reveal Azaceta’s staunch dedication to addressing contemporary issues with his work.

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“Dawn DeDeaux,” 4Columns

dawn dedeaux

The work in DeDeaux’s I’ve Seen the Future and It Was Yesterday excavates a sense of industrial utopianism—that ominous diving suit, for example, or is it a space suit?—which is both ironic and real. DeDeaux captures that sense with images of those nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century structures made when it seemed like the great works of mankind were all signs of progress and would last forever.

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