“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.
Ten years ago Robert Colescott represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. Rarely was there a solo exhibition at the American pavilion and it was even more amazing that this honor was awarded to an African American painter
All Things Considered, September 4, 2007 · John T. Scott was born in Gentilly and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward. He used to say he tried to capture the musicality of New Orleans in the colors and rhythms of his sculptures. He died Saturday at the age of 67.
John T. Scott, a New Orleans sculptor whose vibrantly colored kinetic art filtered the spirit of the African diaspora through a modernist lens, died on Saturday in Houston. He was 67 and had fled his home city just before Hurricane Katrina hit two years ago.