October 12 - November 3, 2024
Opening reception on Second Saturday, October 12, 6-10pm.
Gallery open hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm.
Programming This Month
Saturday, October 12th
6-10pm
BACKYARD INTERDISCIPLINARY INSTALLATION
Ritual of Becoming
Flora Cabili
Ritual of Becoming is an outdoor installation created by Flora Cabili. The installation will feature a movement piece by Flora Cabili, in collaboration with Riley Teahan, projected into a large cube. In conversation with this movement experience, visitors are invited to read nine written works by collaborators Amberine Huda, Kortney Morrow, Danta Fuoco, Summer White, Caressa Chester, Tessa Bryant, Gabe Christian-Solá, Natasha Kafai, and Kauanoe + Pu'ulena. Ritual of Becoming centers on permanence in space and the active theme of entering/exiting as an embodied movement practice. It plays with notions of carving space in time, the act of being awake, and expansion. You are welcomed into a collective meditation of moving through time and space portals where you are asked to answer the questions: "how can I expand, hold onto, and find rest in space?” and "how can I become the reflection of the patterns I decide to create?”
For more info, see “BACKYARD” at the bottom of this page.
Saturday, October 19th
7-10pm
The Front’s second FREE show
for our CONCERT SERIES!
featuring
Roselit Bone + Los Guiros
Roselit Bone
Previously described by Oregon Public Broadcasting as “a unique type of gothic country rock that borrows heavily from Mexican ranchera music, rockabilly and the same lonely and wide-open spaces that inspired the classic Spaghetti Western scores of composer Ennio Morricone.”
@roselitbone
Los Güiros
Described as an electronic dance music, folk, latin, world group from New Orleans. Psychedelic Cumbia that will make you shake it without breaking it. @losguirosband
Find out more info about our new THIRD SATURDAY Concert Series here!
Special thanks to @notcfund
Room 1
Inner World
Mess Arts Collective
Mixed Media (collaborative paintings, ceramics and iron sculpture)
“Inner World” is about saving the environment. Our artists think that the environment needs help. We have to stop pollution in the oceans and in the air, to do that we need to stop using fossil fuels and electronics. We have to stop hurting animals and all nature. We think that people need to do less talking about it and more doing about it.
Mess Arts is a community minded arts non profit for youth in New Orleans. Our focus is to offer high quality accessible arts education in tandem with youth voice and leadership opportunities to young artists. The Mess Arts collective is composed of young artists ages 4-12. We believe it is crucial to show that kids can do what grown ups can do.
Mess Arts Collective, Collaborative painting, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 30, 2024
Mess Arts Collective, Collaborative painting, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30, 2024
Mess Arts Collective, Collaborative painting, Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 30, 2024
Rose (12) is an artist that focuses on art in the form of writing and sculpting. She sculpts nature and abstract forms. She writes realistic fiction and fantasy dystopia..
Bailey (7) is a painter and sculptor who loves helping other people. Bailey makes sculptures, whenever people cook if they don't have any bowls, her and her mom don't have bowls. Now they have tons because she makes them. Art makes her feel good and it’s like screaming out loud that she loves art!
Soleil (9) is a sculptor who makes art about nature, animals, and the world around her. She feels that art is calming and therapeutic, and it makes her happy.
Luna (8) makes clay and sculpture. Her art focuses on mythical creatures and dreams. Art makes her feel tired and hungry.
Lockett (8) is a Graf artist who creates sculptures inspired by graffiti and street style. Lockett makes art because he just wants to.
Amari (7) is a crafter who makes work about people and things. Art makes her happy.
Lei- Lei’s (7) artwork focuses on death. This often looks like graveyards and faces. She creates art because it’s relaxing.
Jogesh (10) is an interdisciplinary artist that makes art about nature, movies, video games, and life inspiration. Jogesh makes art because it is calming and makes him happy.
Zellie (9) enjoys doing everything. She likes all types of art and she likes making animals and people.
Room 2
T.N. Francis, Concentration, Plaster, plastic tubing, 2024
Ulrika Matthiessen, Aurum detail, Painted Bisque, found objects, 14 x 12 x 8 inches, 2024
Ulrika Matthiessen, Cuprum, Painted Bisque, found objects, 12 x 11 x 11 inches, 2024
T.N. Francis, My Right Foot, 11 x 12 x 11 inches, 2024
Title: Limb an Aid Stand
T.N. Francis + Ulrika Matthiessen
Mixed Media Drawings (markers, colored pencil on paper mounted to painted board), mixed media sculptures ( painted bisque, polymer clay, hardware, found objects, cardboard, fabric), and paper collages
Limb an Aid Stand is a collaborative design experiment between mother and son artists Ulrika Matthiessen and T.N. Francis. It is centered around creating eccentric prosthetics. After losing his leg in an accident and being dissatisfied with the aesthetic qualities of his generic prosthesis, T.N. dreamed about more creative and aesthetic possibilities. Together, we imagined many conceptual designs for prosthetics or limbs without limiting ourselves to functional constraints. We aim to push the boundaries of traditional prosthetic design and celebrate individuality and self-expression rather than see the prosthetic as only a functional necessity. Another aspect of our design process is to repurpose found objects into each unique piece. In the real world, prosthetics are expensive, so we also want to explore ways of making them more attainable.
Ableism dictates that you cover your differences rather than celebrate them. How can eccentric prosthetics help challenge traditional beauty standards and norms? How can using eccentric prosthetics in art and media influence societal perceptions of looking human or being beautiful? How would you design your own body if given the chance?
T.N. Francis and Ulrika Matthiessen, Design sketches for eccentric prosthetics, 2024
Ulrika Matthiessen, 2 Eccentric Prosthetic Leg Designs, 2024
New Orleans native T.N. Francis studied art and interaction design in Sweden. He describes himself as an “abstract concept manager” and a “new form alchemist.” He is interested in exploring the intersection of art and technology in design.
@i_am_an_alias
Ulrika Matthiessen is a visual artist based in New Orleans. She was born in Sweden and raised in the American Deep South. With a background in Fine Arts and Architecture, Matthiessen's art is a fusion of observation, imagination, analysis, and chance.
ulrikamatthiessen.com
@ulrikamatthiessen
Room 3
Summer White, OMEN, Digital Collage, 2024.
Summer White, Ophelia’s Recovery, Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 36 inches, 2024.
Summer White, The Bleeding Dress (Detail), Acrylic on Canvas, 2 x 5 feet, 2024.
OMEN
Summer White
Paintings
OMEN
~ a happening believed to be a sign or warning of some future event, signifying the advent of change
~ natural phenomena revealing meaning
~ moon language
Ostenta those that make clear
Portenta those that foreshadow or portend
Monstra those that demonstrate or show, like dreams and visions
Prodigia prodigies that give signs of future events through miraculous happenings
Summer White is a New Orleans based painter and maker. Her work explores the relationships between memory, instinct, trauma, desire, plants, myth, magic, and anatomy. In addition to painting, she creates through sensuous photography and set design. She was born and raised in Texas.
Room 4
anderson funk, Postcard, vector graphic 4x6" 2024
anderson funk, 100,000,000,000,000 Sonnets (Digital Version), processing code, 2024 (Link)
One Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets / 100,000,000,000,000 Sonnets
anderson funk
Kinetic Interactive Sculpture and Books and Digital Versions
"I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of any other part of my identity" -Audre Lorde
This project is about coming together, about opening up where I like to hide.. I am reconstructing a book by Raymond Queneau where an unimaginable number of possible poems will be created. Queneau was a cofounder of Oulipo, (A Workshop of Potential Literature), where math and arbitrary structure aided the creative process into brand new, previously unimaginable possibilities. This work brings together my loves of my friends, poetry, books, mathematics, engineering, sculpture and painting into one exciting project. My goal is to provide wonder and joy at unexpected combinations in the poems. This is a metaphor for openness to the unexpected in our collective life. I seek to embrace myself and folks around me more fully and lovingly.
M Badger & anderson funk, Agatha (process shot), acrylic on fabric 36 x 70 inches, 2024
Tricia Anderson & anderson funk, Hiding (process shot), acrylic on fabric 36 x 70 inches, 2024
Calvin Rowe & anderson funk, Summers (process shot), acrylic on fabric 36 x 70 inches, 2024
My name is anderson funk, born 1989. I study and read a lot, and I like to make beautiful and fun situations, sculptures, and sentences. I studied engineering at Vanderbilt and art at MICA. I like using the languages I learned in both places to inform my understanding of the other. I am grateful to my many friends and family for sticking with me through thick and thin even as I struggle with feeling disconnected, stuck, and directionless at times. My goal is to reveal the power of the human spirit within each of us, to see new ways forward in trying times, through tenderness, clear eyes, and the bravery to keep asking impossible questions. I hope to find myself in big fun miraculous situations, sculptures and sentences as I grow up, grow down, and notice change all around. . .
digital model: openprocessing.org/sketch/2382764
andersonfunk.com
@andfunandfun
vimeo.com/andfun
BACKYARD
Ritual of Becoming
Flora Cabili
Interdisciplinary Installation
Flora Cabili, Ritual of Becoming, film stills, 2024.
Ritual of Becoming is an outdoor installation created by Flora Cabili. The installation will feature a movement piece by Flora Cabili, in collaboration with Riley Teahan, projected into a large cube. In conversation with this movement experience, visitors are invited to read nine written works by collaborators Amberine Huda, Kortney Morrow, Danta Fuoco, Summer White, Caressa Chester, Tessa Bryant, Gabe Christian-Solá, Natasha Kafai, and Kauanoe + Pu'ulena. Ritual of Becoming centers on permanence in space and the active theme of entering/exiting as an embodied movement practice. It plays with notions of carving space in time, the act of being awake, and expansion. You are welcomed into a collective meditation of moving through time and space portals where you are asked to answer the questions: "how can I expand, hold onto, and find rest in space?” and "how can I become the reflection of the patterns I decide to create?”
Flora is an educator and a self- taught interdisciplinary artist who uses public engagement, installations, movement, and mixed-media works to explore themes of origin, assembly, and dislocation. How can we contemplate notions of space and permanence? How can we reconsider the nature of material? Flora is an Antenna collective member and has completed residencies at Aquarium Gallery and DEPART-MENT in New Orleans, Obracadobra in Oaxaca city, and RUBBERBAND in Montreal. She just completed a Mime training intensive at École Internationale de Mime Corporel Dramatique. Flora's next solo show is at Antenna Gallery in June 2025. She was born in France and raised in France/US. She has lived in New Orleans since 2015.