Willie Birch is a New Orleans-based artist whose exhibition Celebrating Freedom: The Art of Willie Birch is currently on view at New Orleans’ Contemporary Arts Center.
Exhibition Dates: November 3 – November 24, 2007 Opening Reception: Saturday, November 3 from 5–8 pm Gallery Location: 434 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm…
In his acrylic and charcoal paintings such as The Barber Shop, Willie Birch explores the people and places that define old New Orleans neighborhoods.
“As an artist, I do not live in a vacuum.I am constantly absorbing the life of my community, recording it in my public and personal works.”
As one walks into Arthur Roger Gallery to view the latest show by Gene Koss, Levee Break and Silo, the mechanical churning and humming sound emanating from the front gallery immediately captures one’s interest.
Those familiar with James Drake’s work from exhibitions in Santa Fe, N.M., where the 61-year-old Texan currently resides, might think of him principally as a draftsman. Those from El Paso, where Drake spent most of his life, might think of him as a sculptor of room-sized, welded-steel installations featuring handmade facsimiles of knives, guns and animal trophies.
Seven, nearly life-size female figures fashioned out of copper and wire lettering fill the gallery floor. Each form is adorned with a ball gown and ornate headdresses. These “Word Queens” seem to float and glide through the space as if it were a royal ball, as banners of words and phrases are suspended from the ceiling above.
For decades, Jacqueline Bishop has traveled to flashpoints of environmental peril around the world, especially the rainforests of Brazil, which are now deeply involved in patterns of land loss and climate change.
For many New Orleans artists, an aesthetic response to Hurricane Katrina was a spiritual necessity, even it then-customary styles were oddly fitted to the project. And, in most instances, the work born of this situation fully registered with us. Such is the force oftrue emotional engagement.
Oakland native Robert Colescott, who left the Bay Area for Arizona in 1985, has returned in force with a sampling of a decade’s work at Meridian.