The Arthur Roger Gallery is very pleased to be a part of Art Miami this year. At Booth B100, we are exhibiting works by John Alexander, Luis Cruz Azaceta, David Bates, Jacqueline Bishop, Douglas Bourgeois, Robert Colescott, Stephen Paul Day, Lesley Dill, James Drake, Troy Dugas, George Dureau, Lin Emery, Vernon Fisher, Tim Hailand, Whitfield Lovell, Deborah Luster, Gordon Parks, Holton Rower, and Amy Weiskopf.
Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art questions and explores the complex and contested space of the American South. One needs to look no further than literature, cuisine and music to see evidence of the South’s profound influence on American culture, and consequently much of the world.
“Simon Gunning and the Southern Louisiana Landscape” at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. October 1, 2016 – February 5, 2017. “Did you ever stand and shiver … just because you were looking at a river?” So sang Bob Dylan’s early mentor, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, about a youthful trip to New Orleans where the Mississippi River’s inscrutable currents embodied the sense of mystery he felt here — a sensibility echoed by Simon Gunning in this sprawling retrospective. Intrigued by the Big Muddy and its contrast with the pristine shores of his native Australia, Gunning devoted much of his life to exploring its awesome charisma and the city it shaped.
Sunday’s Child by New Orleans-based artist Willie Birch is a quintessential example of Birch’s work in papier-mâché, a medium he began employing in the mid-1980s. Birch’s sculpture of a young African-American girl includes a round, glass-covered box affixed to her chest filled with objects, a reference to the materials found in African Nkisi figures.
October 2016 Installation of Lin Emery’s Quinte at the University Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The term Toile de Jouy refers to a particular style of patterned textile, typically a neutral background overlaid with woodcut-style bucolic scenes of Rococo romance. Think of men and women lounging in billowed, ruffled sleeves, children playing in pantaloons, a musician playing the flute, or a farm animal at work. Roughly translated, Toile de Jouy means “canvas of joy.” Considering these designs were often made into upholstery or wallpaper, the average contemporary viewer may be hard-pressed to feel joy; to be thrilled by a seat cushion or a parlor wall would be a rare ecstasy. However, artist Tim Hailand seems to be after something more complex than simple joy in his exhibition “Sister I’m a Poet,” currently on view at Arthur Roger Gallery.
When painter Nicole Charbonnet acquired her Irish Channel studio — which serves both as her workspace and her home — it had already fallen prey to the insults of time and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In its rescue, she not only saved an old building, but set her sights on living and working completely off the grid.
New Orleanians have always enjoyed seeing themselves portrayed on the stage. Witness the perennial popularity of shows like “And The Ball and All,” not to mention the innumerable productions of “A Streetcar Named Desire” that have been mounted over the decades. To some extent, that’s been true of our tastes in visual arts as well. You never have to look very far to see a Rodrigue or a Michalopoulos poster on someone’s wall. But the deep pleasures afforded by Simon Gunning’s paintings go far beyond just local interest.
There is an old controversy in art and science regarding the way some mystics and schizophrenics see the world as a glowing network of interwoven patterns. Is it a nutty hallucination or were they on to something? Similar patterns in the work of schizo mystic genius artists such as Walter Anderson or Vincent Van Gogh also turn up in the work of psychedelic researchers as well as recent explorations of quantum physics and fractal geometry.
