Where can you find a collection of works from Anita Cook, visit a solo exhibition from Esther Murphy or Leslie Friedman? Where can you discover an artist you never heard of? ... in the Arts District Saint Claude. Its website recently published offers a list of galleries, collectives and more.
Starting at Good Children Gallery, Leslie Friedman's solo show Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah fills the front and back of the gallery space with screen prints on various materials and a video. The print maker addresses an endless subject through her pop art: "identity, social inclusion and exclusion". Belonging to a group validates our status in a society and is key to our identity. Jackets, flags, patches, decorated helmets or "fish chandeliers" provide a way to join a group made of "all those skipped over". The artist is not only making art, her pieces become a membership to this "new gang on the block" and the video is a personal invitation. Somewhat disconnected with the exhibition's theme, abstract geometric black and white screen prints with decorative shapes and patterns complete the display.
Humor spreads from The Front, featuring thirty one women comic artists with "stories concerning their bodies and experiences in patriarchal society", to Antenna Gallery where Natalie McLaurin shares her new experience with motherhood through sculptures and drawings. Far from the serenity displayed by nursing Madonnas, her reality appears filled with pain, frustration and guilt. Breastfeeding is not easy, humor helps!
Nearby, BrickRed Gallery offers a display of photographs from Esther Murphy. The exhibition's title Orekticos I refers to the word orectic, "concerning desire, appetite". Influenced by her recent year-long stay in China, her luscious, exuberant still lifes reach beyond photography and in the genre's tradition include symbols like decaying fruits or citrus peels. The artist's compositions remind of the best chinoiseries made popular in France in the eighteenth century and beyond... with a twist.
Anita Cook is represented by fifteen works at the New Orleans Art Center. Her practice is about lines, texture, sometimes colors and ultimately rhythm. For example, the busy cityscape City Streets/Control Panel made of juxtaposed small squares contrast with the waves of Windswept/ Ohio Fields in Winter. The undated works on display represent different series or processes per Cook's website. Three of Not Your Mother's Apron series, older works, are more actual than ever. The show allows an overview of her work spanning decades and underline her tight connection to the city. In one of her statement Cook describes "the energy of the process" to create the dense compositions which take several years to produce.
In the back of the gallery, one can find the works from D. Nuego who gathers left over packing material like Styrofoam as his media to carve giant monochrome sculptures weighting only a few pounds. Like a true outsider, D. Nuego is not found on the Internet or social media. His mythical creations with Spanish titles appear to be inspired by Mayan art and refer to animals, objects or places.
The UNO Saint-Claude gallery is a great venue to meditate this month. Two videos ensure a visual as well as auditory experience with the acoustic music composed by Jane Cassidy.
So... Cross the railroad and visit the Arts District Saint Claude, there is more to see ...
Anita Cook is represented by fifteen works at the New Orleans Art Center. Her practice is about lines, texture, sometimes colors and ultimately rhythm. For example, the busy cityscape City Streets/Control Panel made of juxtaposed small squares contrast with the waves of Windswept/ Ohio Fields in Winter. The undated works on display represent different series or processes per Cook's website. Three of Not Your Mother's Apron series, older works, are more actual than ever. The show allows an overview of her work spanning decades and underline her tight connection to the city. In one of her statement Cook describes "the energy of the process" to create the dense compositions which take several years to produce.
In the back of the gallery, one can find the works from D. Nuego who gathers left over packing material like Styrofoam as his media to carve giant monochrome sculptures weighting only a few pounds. Like a true outsider, D. Nuego is not found on the Internet or social media. His mythical creations with Spanish titles appear to be inspired by Mayan art and refer to animals, objects or places.
The UNO Saint-Claude gallery is a great venue to meditate this month. Two videos ensure a visual as well as auditory experience with the acoustic music composed by Jane Cassidy.
So... Cross the railroad and visit the Arts District Saint Claude, there is more to see ...
photographs by the author:
"Yaddah Backdrop" from Leslie Friedman
Anita Cook: "ColorWheel, from the InsideOut" from Quilt Series.
