cash bar. bywater prices.

Free parking available in the lot on the corner of St. Claude & France St. (half a block past the gallery, riverside). Please respect our neighborhood and do not park on the neutral ground! Plenty of on-street parking is also available on the adjacent side streets.

Opens Saturday January 27th, 2007
Click here for photos from the opening.

Exhibition runs through the beginning of March
Gallery Viewing Hours: 12 Noon - 5pm Saturdays & Sundays
Appointments by request during weekdays -
Please call 504.324.2489 to schedule an appointment.

l'art Noir New Orleans presents Things to Come, a sampling of the different styles and subject matters we intend to explore over the coming years - including, but by no means limited to Lowbrow Art, Outsider Art, Political and Social commentary, Cartoon Surrealism, Brut Art and anything else that may tickle our fancy.

Featured Artists:

David Rae Morris
Travis Linde
Angie
Kevin Thayer
Alexis Wolf
Herbert Kearney
Naomi Duffey
Allison Gordin
Andrea Garland
Master Jeffrey

With Music by Doc Otis

David Rae Morris:

David Rae Morris was born in Oxford, England and grew up in New York City. He had an early interest in photograph and attended night classes at the International Center of Photography. He holds a B.A. from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, in 1982, and an M.A. In Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota in 1991. His photographs have been published in such diverse publications as Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, and the New York Times, to the Angolite, the official Magazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and Love And Rage, a national anarchist weekly. He had also served as a contributing photographer for the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agency France Presse, and the European Pressphoto Agency

In 1999, Morris collaborated with his late father, the noted author Willie Morris, on "My Mississippi," a collection of essays and photographs about the state of Mississippi and her people published by the University Press of Mississippi. His photographs are in many private and public collections including in the permanent collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, and Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. His exhibit, ???Do You Know What it Means? The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,??? opened In November 2005, ten weeks after Katrina made landfall.

Morris and his long time partner, Susanne Dietzel, have lived in New Orleans since 1994. They have a four year-old daughter, Uma Rae Morris Dietzel.

DavidRaeMorris.com

Travis Linde:

Travis Linde is an artist from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. His sculptures are constructed of found materials and debris from his home and neighborhood post Katrina. Before the storm, Travis was a vintage motorcycle mechanic, which is very apparent in several of the pieces. Many of the gas tanks, gears, and tools he uses in the sculptures were from his shop, which took on four feet of water. Travis is also a painter, mechanic and a tattoo artist. He has been tattooing for over ten years, and currently works at Pigment Tattoo in New Orleans.

RustyPelicanArt.com

Angie:

Angie's ongoing series Sour Girls is heavily influenced by the idea of "kipple". A made up word from Philip K.Dick, kipple is the eventual rot of manmade items without humans there to make them useful. Angie feels that nowhere is this concept embraced more so than in New Orleans, where we cling to the old and the smell of decay is always just underneath the surface of things.

Angie's Sour Girls fit in perfectly with New Orleans decay, blending stripped down girls with found objects that have previously been stripped of their use. Created completely with watercolors, found frames and other bits of found ribbon, bone, and trinkets, the art, too, will eventually turn into kipple.

Angie currently lives in New Orleans, making it her tenth year here. She recently bought a house in Gentilly and lives with her boyfriend, their three cats and a rabbit, and their plethora of collectibles.

*(You might recognize Angie from the reality TV show Survivor/Palau.)

Kevin Thayer:

Kevin Thayer is an illustrator for Modern Panic.

Crazy and exciting images that make ones eyes jiggle slightly with delight.

Gig posters, t-shirt designs, and pin-ups for clients such as Texas Roller Girls, Springheel, jack.net, d.b.a. New Orleans, Dog & Rooster Productions among others.

Kevin recently returned to New Orleans.

ModernPanic.com

Alexis Wolf:

Alexis Wolf is a photographer currently living in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Originally from the midwest, Alexis studied the arts at Columbia College Chicago, where she earned a degree in fine art. Her focus was mainly in the traditional printing process of silver gelatin prints and large format cameras.

In more recent years, she has shifted her focus to incorporating traditional large format cameras with digital giclee printing.

Herbert Kearney:

"Here again for consistency if nothing else, writing my way out of another day. It seems to be the golden thread by which this whole mess hangs. High time for down time say I...!

Writing my way back into this jungle of canvas and wax and a studio full of street debris to translate into art. Sometimes I feel like I could just spend the rest of my life writing --- (aside) 10 is a none number on a metaphysical level it is a 'Portal' through which <~8~> is liken to an eternal moment in time.

Alas, the tools with which they have cursed me have made it impossible for me to separate the two, and yet, has doubled the work load within the corporeal time allotted. And so I sit down and try and write my way thru the over whelming task before me.

This pile of debris that is me! That which I have to turn into art before it turns back into debris: These canvases, the boat, the bronzes, the waxes, the mixed media, the printing, the eight foot book, the chap books, the plays, the illustrations, the poetry, the unmade expected, the life ! ...I can't go on, I must go on, and there it is!"

Naomi Duffey:

Naomi's Heart series explores going out the front door every day into post Katrina New Orleans; the anxiety involved in daily life, the beauty of the toxic mold blooms, dark-hearted people taking advantage of evacuees, and almost nightmare-inspired dream visions.

Her chicken heads are inspired by the Voo Doo mysticism of New Orleans, in which the chicken is used as a sacrificial animal.

Naomi started making devil babies when a friend of hers was pregnant. New Orleans has a tradition of King Cake parties that run once a week from the first day of 12th night until Ash Wednesday. A tiny porcelain baby was cooked into the King Cake by the host of the King Cake party, and whomever got the slice of King Cake with the baby in it had to host the next party. Naomi draws on the pre-Christian pagan roots of this festival and makes the babies devils.

Allison Gordin:

How can it be expressed, this moment! The erotic glance of a lover, the sadness of loss. Hands say so much, the way a person holds a cigarette; smoke curling into the blackness. At this moment she's so beautiful, but what lies in the shadows? Why does his arm reach into the void? Are hands as expressive as the eyes? I don't know, but I want to explore the idea. Hidden or in the foreground, in the shadows , or staring at you with a million possibilities. Inviting, expressing grief, remorse, or just lain self absorption. The human face and hands are so fascinating to me, compelling and irresistible.

Painting is much like these things to me. I paint from photographs. I like to interpret the moment captured in the seconds with a camera and then... after sharing this intensity of communication with another. The solitary confinement of the studio, just the painting and the artist. Can I capture the emotion, the intimacy of that moment, just what it is that makes that person so intriguing. I will try. Oils seem to offer the most flexibility. They seem the most malleable to my abilities. Oils are sensual in a way that most mediums are not, the scent of linseed oil, turpentine and the various glazes. Say so much to us, our eyes, nose, touching. Yes, the touch of the paint on the skin. It can be so reminiscent of the organic humanity of the person being painted.

AllisonGordin.com

Andrea Garland:

Largely self-taught, Andrea Garland has explored many artistic mediums and enjoys combining elements not usually found together and creating her own techniques. Her current focus blends together elements of photography, digital design, lightbox techniques, multi-layered images and stained glass with found objects thrown in for good measure.

A New Orleans transplant who arrived from the cold North over sixteen years ago, Andrea currently makes a living as a graphic artist and website designer and co-runs l'art Noir with Master Jeffrey. In her spare time she is a community and political activist and attempts to keep the seven household cats happy.

CompulsiveCreations.com

Master Jeffrey:

Master Jeffrey is a photographer, artist and the founder of l'art Noir. His photography career began as a photojournalist for Southern Star Boating magazine in South Florida, covering the offshore powerboat racing circuit. In 1989, Southern Star and Jeffrey won three awards due to his coverage.

Master Jeffrey eventually left the boating and advertising world to focus more on his fine art and gallery aspirations. Former clients and publications include: Hot Boat magazine, Century Boats, Revlon, Jazz Iz magazine, and Diamond Advertising & Publishing.

Master Jeffrey closed shop in South Florida in 2001 and moved the project to New Orleans. After a brief run at the Mazant Guest House during which he married Andrea Garland, Jeffrey and Andrea found a permanent location on St. Claude Avenue and are currently working with Barrister's Gallery and Farrington-Smith Gallery to create a new arts district unlike none other in the city.