GALLERIES



AND MUSEUMS

Adventures in Art in the city of Wine, Food and Jazz -
Three of New Orleans' most unique galleries, each one very different from the others:

The Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, the Arthur Roger Gallery and the Michalopoulos Gallery.

The Jonathan Ferrara Gallery
841 Carondelet Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

The Jonathan Ferrara Gallery is an artist-owned contemporary fine art gallery located in the historic Warehouse District of New Orleans. It features cutting edge works by local and national artists including paintings, sculpture, glass, metal works, photography, mixed media and installation art. Locals know iit as an entire "creative space", and a source of incredibly eclectic, wild art.
Recently reopened after a disastrous fire, the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery has continue to present new and exciting works of art by the city's finest artists.

Currently, the extraordinary exhibition of paintings and other works by Matthew Cox - "5 Practical Uses For Capes" - is proving to be yet another visually stunning solo exhibition by this prolific and talented artist.

Figures waiting in line, riding in an airplane, standing at an art opening or working in the kitchen - in choosing these topics,Cox emphasizes the experience of these mundance activities, while elevating them into something elegant and beautiful. In days past there were practical uses for capes, but no longer. Only in fiction does the cape offer a dramatic flair that separates the ordinary person from one of great importance, a superhero, perhaps. In depicting ordinary people doing ordinary things, Cox wryly clothes them in capes - symbolically increasing the importance of their activities.

Stylistically, Cox' work is reminiscent of the Italian masters. These beautifully rendered large-scaled oil paintings, with muted earth tones and layers of glazing evoke a classic feeling. His first solo exhibition, "Elaborating on the Ordinary", held in the same gallery last December, was selected as the number five of the top ten art exhibitions of 2001 by the Times-Picayune art critic Doug MacCash. This year's solo exhibition will be just as exciting and innovative. "5 Practical Uses for Capes" will be on display through January 3, 2003.

Exciting News! The New Orleans Museum of Art has purchased Matthew Cox's large scale figure painting "Catfight" for it's permanent collection.

For more information on this and other shows, contact the gallery at 504.522.5471, or at info@jonathanferraragallery.com

 

The Arthur Roger Gallery
432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Web: www.artroger.com or call 504.522.1999.

 

Through December 28th, 2002, the Gallery presents exhibitions of recent work by the glass artist Mitchell Gaudet and by sculptor Jesus Moroles.

Gaudet regards himself primarily as a glass caster who ladles molten glass out of a furnace and into a mold, frequently incorporating found objects into his work often indirectly by the abstraction of the object in the casting process.. He likes to make objects with "a funky historical presence to them." and approaches his work in a narrative manner telling a story with both his shows and his individual pieces.

For this show, Gaudet chose to use only cobalt as a color because of its seductiveness, richness and association with healing. In addition to smaller pieces, he has created two large screens of glass tiles embossed with the imagery of found objects, and a wall hanging, "Inventory", which comprises many small castings, framed by an old cast iron mantel. The artist is also presenting in the show a collection of flasks with a used laboratory appearance which are felt to contain the essence, for example, of an event or person as defined by the stopper.

Jesus Moroles works on both a monumental and small scale in his granite sculpture, combining cutting and polishing techniques with the natural presence of the stone to create works of universal stature. Moroles states, "My work is a discussion of how man exists in nature and touches nature and uses nature. Each of my pieces has about 50 percent of its surfaces untouched and raw --- those are parts of the stone that were torn. The rest of the work is smoothed and polished. The effect, which I want people to not only look at but touch, is a harmonious coexistence of the two."

Moroles refers to the hard stone as if it were alive, saying that when he visits a quarry to select his materials, certain pieces of granite speak to him and beckon him to take them home, though it may be years before they reveal their secrets to the artist. In this manner Moroles is aligned with many ancient cultures, which have attributed great powers-from magical energies to fertility and healing-to stones.

 

The Michalopoulos Gallery
617 Bienville Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Web: www.michalopoulos.com or call 504.558.0505.

The Michalopoulos Galleries in New Orleans and Boston feature the work of James Michalopoulos, who is famous for his splendidly skewed paintings of French Quarter balconies, Garden District mansions and Back Bay beauties. Michalopoulos speaks lyrically of "the music and energy llurking in houses", and his oil paintings capture the life, movement and personality of these structures. In this spirit his houses live, breathe and move like the people who inhabit them.

Michalopoulos' work brings to mind such words as expressionistic, gestural, energetic and colorful. In addition to his "organic" buildings, he paints automobiles which look like living beings, as well as lyrically beautiful figure paintings.

In both 1998 and 2001 he was commissioned to create the official poster for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and i n his capacity as Art Director for House of Blues Productions he has designed stage sets for the House of Blues in both New Orleans and Los Angeles.