M E T A M O R P H O S I S
WHO: Virginia Parker
WHAT: Metamorphosis; Solo Art Exhibition
WHERE: Galerie Gigi, 627 Saint Peter Street (Between Royal and Chartres)
WHEN: Opening Reception Fri. November 6th, Exhibition runs from 11/6/09-11/28/09
Many write about painting, but at Galerie Gigi’s solo exhibition Metamorphosis, artist Virginia Parker paints about writing. More accurately, the painter and former journalist holds a mirror up to publishing's storied past and journalism's troubled present with her series of complex and hyper-realistic still lifes.
Parker’s series Metamorphosis couldn’t be more relevant right here – right now. As journalism and print media outlets vanish locally and nationally, profound cultural changes are taking place. Newspapers and magazines are shrinking, and independent booksellers and publishing houses are going out of business. “Last January, after the worldwide financial Armageddon hit, the acceleration of job losses and the collapse of magazines and newspapers was phenomenal,” Parker says.
At first journalism seemed endangered, a casualty of the shift in information delivery from actual to virtual, paper to Internet, but as Parker pulled the elements together, what began as the depiction of a calamity became one of evolution. Several of the canvases present the obsolete tools of writers – from movable type and printing plates, to quill pens and typewriters.
“Metamorphosis involves the porous border between extinction and evolution,” says the decidedly glass-half-full artist. "Inherent in these discarded relics is the implication that although the way we publish the stories changes, the stories will continue to be told."
As the medium and the method for communication shifts, the shape of publishing’s future is still tantalizingly undefined. Parker's contemporary Nature Morte series with its elements of Vanitas paintings, uses visual metaphors and social commentary to present both the catastrophe, and her belief that journalism will survive. |
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Who: James Taylor Bonds, John Fields, Hayley Gaberlavage, John K. Lawson, Jimmy Mac, and Vitalija Svencionyte
What: “The Mixed Bag” Art Exhibition
When: Opening reception: Friday, October 2, 2009 at 6PM. Exhibition runs through 10/30/09
Where: Galerie Gigi 627 Saint Peter St. (between Royal and Chartres)
Galerie Gigi is proud to present “The Mixed Bag”. This group exhibition, curated by Terrence Sanders features large-scale works that reflect the diversity, eccentricity, and individuality of New Orleans’ unique visual culture. The artists featured in this exhibition explore the personal, the political, and the geographical narrative of a city, a nation, and a people full of contrasts.
When Katrina ravished John K. Lawson’s studio containing 25 years of artwork, the artist’s work turned to exploring the fragility of life using salvaged artwork and encaustic. Recently Lawson has incorporated blueprints from the 1984 World Fair and New Orleans city ordinance and zoning maps into his work, presenting a refashioned body of work that has stepped out of the personal and into the world at large.
Birmingham native John Fields works with opposing forces. Whether it is the fundamental contrasts of black and white, the humorous and the horrible, or the sexy and the disgusting, his work attempts to present both sides of a question, forcing the opposing sides into a single gestalt unity. His new body of work explores personal and political questions involving the new, so-called “post-racism” America that began with last November’s elections.
James Taylor Bonds’ work is a depiction of New Orleans as seen through the eyes of a southern boy lost in the romanticism and despair of the stories of a city who sleeps with its’ past. Bonds offers the vision of a silent wanderer, exploring a city whose history is prominently stained on its streets and its’ people.
Jimmy Mac has traded in his instruments for acrylics and hand ground pastels. After 2 decades of performing with Cajun rock band Loup Garou, Jimmy Mac is now creating canvases that dance between the figurative and the abstract. Hayley Gaberlavage is inspired by a love of fashion, furniture, and design creating perceptual eye-candy with a color scheme reminiscent of a retro 1970s interior. Her paintings present the figurative by creating graphic patterns, creating a canvas that is playful, unique, and very much alive. Vitalija Svencionyte offers a colorful and abstract tribute to Louisiana’s contemporary jazz and blues. Her current work features portraits of musicians painted through the point of view of their instruments, thus conveying something improvisational and interpretive, much like a visual-jazz experience.
Join us on Friday, October 2nd, 6 pm at Galerie Gigi for an opening reception with the artists. The exhibition runs at Galerie Gigi from October 2nd – the 30th, Thursday through Sat 11am to 5pm. For more information contact Galerie Gigi director, Lindsay Viner at (713) 385-7890 or lindsay.viner@gmail.com.
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WHO: Group exhibition featuring 7 local artists: Blaine Capone, Colin Meneghini, Anthony Carriere, Tony Nozero, Bruce Davenport, Steve Soltis, and Chad Moore
WHAT: "The Magnificent 7" art exhibition
WHEN: September 5th - October 1st, Opening Reception Sept. 5th at 6PM
WHERE: Galerie Gigi, 627 St. Peter (In the Quarter between Royal and Chartres)
We are thrilled to announce the unveiling of “The Magnificent 7” at Galerie Gigi. The much anticipated group show, curated by Terrence Sanders, features work by artists Blaine Capone, Colin Meneghini, Anthony Carriere, Tony Nozero, Bruce Davenport, Steve Soltis, and Chad Moore.
The Magnificent 7 is an important exhibition featuring our top seven local rising stars of the contemporary art world. This show features a group of artists with styles and backgrounds as diverse, unique, and eccentric as the populous of this city.
The 9th ward, homegrown, self-taught talent, Bruce Davenport is best known for his ink drawings portraying the marching bands from his youth. Detroit native and proud New orleans transplant, Tony Nozero has switched gears from professional musician to visual artist, creating an astonishingly deep and prolific body of work in his last few years in the city. Anthony Carriere, who's upbringing was seeped in Southwest Louisiana's cajun french culture, made his own toys from found and created objects as a child; this sense of playfulness coupled with a compulsive need to discover and create informs his current collage work. This list goes on and on.
"The Magnificent 7 features New Orleans Artists who articulate figurative relations in their work", explains curater Terrence Sanders. "New Orleans has a strong tradition of draftsman who are rooted inb the practice of drawing and painting. These young draftsman featured in this exhibition are the not so distant cousins of Dali, Van Gogh, Basquiat, and even Alex Katz." While the figure is a powerful tool for the artists, each piece articulates its message through a diverse range of techniques and processes, from impressionistic brush strokes, to collage work remeniscent of the surrealists, to the direct and concise message of graffiti art. "New Orleans is fast growing into a Contemporary art hub" explains Sanders, "but will never in my opinion lose it's influence on new painters that explore the representational aspects of the human figure."
Join us on September 5th, 6 pm at Galerie Gigi for an opening reception with the artists. The exhibition runs at Galerie Gigi from Sept.5th to Oct. 1st, Thursday through Saturday 11am to 5pm. For more information contact Galerie Gigi director, Lindsay Viner at (713) 385-7890 or lindsay.viner@gmail.com.
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WOMEN ON THE VERGE
July 18th – August 29th, Opening Reception Saturday, July 18th at 6PM
We are thrilled to announce the unveiling of “Women on the Verge” at Galerie Gigi. The much anticipated group show, curated by Terrence Sanders, features work by artists Ariel Jackson, Hannah Downey, Grissel Guiliano, Layla Messkoub, Libbie Allen, Marin Dearie, Miriam Waterman, Olivia Hill, and Rebecca Rebouche.
“‘Women on the Verge’ is an important exhibition featuring a new era of women in art”, says the show’s curator and Art Voices Magazine editor and publisher, Terrence Sanders. “When I began conceptualizing this exhibition I wanted to feature young promising, gifted and talented female artists living in New Orleans…Nine independent women, each with an individual statement; concise, original, and refreshing.”
Join us on July 18th, 6 pm at Galerie Gigi for an opening reception with the artists and curator “as they hang their struggles, joys, and dreams - articulating a new narrative in Contemporary Art.”
The exhibition runs at Galerie Gigi from July 18th until August 29th, Thursday through Sat 11am to 5pm. For more information contact Galerie Gigi director, Lindsay Viner at (713) 385-7890 or lindsay.viner@gmail.com.
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For the first time since its historical release in 1992, Jose Maria Cundin brings to New Orleans the unique limited edition engraving of THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE together with the photographic report of this remarkable accomplishment. This work of art reproduces the character and calligraphy of a document that shook the world in 1776 and continues even today to offer inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.
Cundin, who has been showing his paintings and sculptures in New Orleans for more than 40 years, founded Millennia III, a Fine Arts Press. He assembled a team to present the Declaration, not just as a document of historical significance but also as a work of art. The image was engraved by hand by Perico Azpiazu, considered one of the finest metal engravers in the world. Paper for the edition was handmade by Villabona and weighs 500 grams per sheet. Maestro Arturo Garcia of the renowned Taller Mayor 28 of Madrid pulled the prints.
A limited number of engravings of this heirloom edition are available to the public. Each is accompanied by a signed and dated Certificate of Authenticity and a statement that reads:
“In repeating in exacting detail the courageous and hopeful calligraphy of this great manifesto, in carving the lines, the arcs and the flourishes of these noble words and signatures we hope that our artistry has honored both the United States and the principles upon which this great country was founded”.
On the historical release of the Millennia Edition in 1992 King Juan Carlos I of Spain presented print number 0 to Present George H. W. Bush. The following year Thomas Foley, Speaker of the House, received print number 1 to be permanently displayed in Congress. Other prints can be found at The Princeton Library; Johnson & Wales University; The Naval Museum of Madrid; The Texaco Collection; the Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA; The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC; Spain ’92 Foundation, Washington, DC; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; Virginia Polytechnic University, Blacksburg, VA, and among other institutions and numerous private collections.
The engraving can be viewed with the photographic report of the process through July 11, 2009
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