July 13 - August 4, 2024

Opening reception on Second Saturday, July 13, 6-10pm.
Gallery open hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm.

Programming This Month:

Room 1

Patrick O’Connor, Have you heard of Reflectionism?, The Front, 2024.

Have you heard of Reflectionism?
Patrick O'Connor

Installation, Curated by Diane Appaix-Castro

Re-flec-tion-ism - Action to provoke a prediction about the future’s envy of the past.

The notion of actions and reactions as an explanation for existence and our future is prominent. While some believe that thinking alone proves existence, I prefer reflection over this approach. Reflection offers a more comprehensive and empathetic understanding of the world around us. It encompasses the movement, light, sound, and emotions we experience. An action-reaction system fails to capture the constant motion of everything. Reflection is essential to give meaning to actions. For instance, we see stars and the moon through reflection. Defining existence by causes divides us, but recognizing existence allows us to understand our place in it.

If a tree falls with no one around, does it make a sound? The answer is no because hearing requires someone to interpret the sound. However, this suggests that hearing is defined by interpretation, regardless of a person’s presence. We cannot be sure of the answer because we need to determine the cause. This parable shows that control is reflected in the setup of the question. Regardless of sound, time reflects changes through motion. We should consider the tree’s life cycle, reflecting its journey from seed to tree and back, interacting with other trees and seeds.

Patrick O’Connor, originally from Cambridge, Mass., has lived and worked in New Orleans for the last 5 years. He has shown his work to the public once, but he is always creating. As a multidisciplinary artist, he has explored music, experimental photography, 3D rendering tools and machines, textiles, and installation. Patrick hopes to make spaces for others to learn and relate to each other. He is interested in the multiple identities of the natural world. Each thing is known to itself in ways that other things won’t know. With this guiding force in mind, Patrick has traversed many landscapes not hoping to find any-one-thing but in reflection.

@patrickeverywhereigo

Room 2

Kay Curley, Da Hair Sto, The Front, 2024.

Da Hair Sto
Kay Curley

Multidisciplinary Installation curated by Elvira Michelle and Sly Watts

Drawing on a time period when Black mothers had the Liv on deck and the Blue Magic always. Bright hair-balls and barrettes filled a clear container or an old RoseArt box to the brim. The beauty supply store showed up frequently in my personal and general Black girlhood while growing with me into adulthood. My installment of ‘Da Hair Sto’ follows various instances or items that resonate with the experience of visiting these stores. For many, the hair store offers a place for us to exist how we see fit. 

Through a curated selection of instances and items, I invite viewers to immerse themselves in the sensory richness of the hair store experience. Each artifact serves as a portal to a moment in time, a reminder of the profound significance these spaces hold in shaping our cultural identities and empowering our sense of self.

Kay Curley is a freelance graphic designer and artist based in New Orleans, LA. She holds a BA in Graphic Design from Loyola University New Orleans. Her work is deeply inspired by Southern Black culture and the unique, vibrancy of New Orleans. Drawing on the rich heritage and stories of her grandparents, Kay’s art reflects an innate connection to her roots and the cultural nostalgia of her hometown.

She has collaborated with many other notable culture brands and organizations, like Nike, Sephora, and Emerson Collective, bringing her unique artistic vision to a broad audience. Her designs capture the spirit and history of her influences, blending them with contemporary aesthetics to create pieces that are both timeless and modern.

@curleyarchive
curleyarchive.com

Room 3

Déja M. Jones, Hello, My Name is Citrellus-Laniqua, and I LOVE WATERMELON!, The Front, 2024.

Hello, My Name is Citrellus-Laniqua, and I LOVE WATERMELON!
Déja M. Jones

Mutl-media Installation of sculptures and paintings.

Hello, my name is Citrellus-Laniqua, and I LOVE WATERMELON, a multimedia installation of sculptures and paintings created by Black Creole artist Déja M. Jones. In this installation, Jones combines science, history, and the cultural significance of watermelon in Black and Brown communities to express their perspective on healing and the liberation it can bring from the effects of political abuse, inherited wounds, and negative internalized discourse.

Déja Jones, a self-taught Black/ Indigenous Creole from New Orleans, began their career at the intersection of advocacy and art. In 2017, they 1st showcased their interactive installation, Grandmama's House, at the New Orleans Art Center. Jones's introduction to the local art scene was a devoted love letter, made of multi-media sculptures and archival media, to the advocacy of southern Black communities during the Civil Rights Era. Since then, Jones has showcased artwork in Scotland, the U.K., New York, Louisiana, and Missouri. In 2023 they were selected to become a member of the artist-led exhibition space, The Front Gallery, where Jones often exhibits newly emerging projects. Jones's love for their community inspired them to explore community-focused projects further. In 2019, Jones collaborated with Imagine Water Works (IWW) for a climate justice symposium in NYC, titled "Art of Science/Science of Art". The event brought together artists, scientists, and engineers concerned about water management and climate change. Later on, they served as the Imagine Water Works Programs Coordinator, until 2024. Jones currently serves as a member of the IWW board.  In 2020, Jones completed their fellowship with the New Orleans Youth Alliance and now works as a Youth Development Specialist with the Children and Youth Planning Board (CYPB), focusing on positive youth development within New Orleans through collaboration, art, and youth voice. Recently, Jones has launched a podcast in partnership with the CYPB and Be Loud Studios, called Youth Connections. It serves as a creative outlet and platform for local youth to share their experiences related to health and well-being, safety & justice, space & place, learning, and economic stability. Jones has found fulfillment in this space of creativity, collaboration, and advocacy in recent years and looks forward to the opportunity to grow alongside their community on their ancestral land for many years to come.

dejamjones.com
@creating.dejamojo

Room 4

Elvira Michelle & Sly Watts, Permission to enjoy, The Front, 2024.

Permission to enjoy
Elvira Michelle & Sly Watts

Multi-media installation: video, audio/music, archival collage, etc.

Permission to enjoy is a multi-disciplinary exhibition that explores joy as a part of self-preservation. Is joy precious and fleeting? Or do we have the ability to generate and prolong it? In a world where we give ourselves one day to celebrate the joy of our being, what if we lived everyday as if it were our birthday?

Elvira Michelle & Sly Watts, Permission to enjoy, The Front, 2024.

Elvira Michelle: "Visual arts has given me a way to explore and express my most raw and deepest emotions fearlessly. I believe pushing the limits to what makes us uncomfortable is where we learn the most about ourselves and the world around us. This allows me to live empathetically, work with intention, and produce content that will impact the audience."

Elvira Michelle (b. 1992, New Orleans, LA based) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker born and raised in Miami, Florida. Her work explores intergenerational memory and trauma and how it manifests in the experience of marginalized communities.

Sly Watts: Sly Watts, born and raised in New Orleans, LA, taught himself several creative skills, including illustration, painting, rapping, music production, and animation. Sly later formally learned graphic design, which evolved into a freelance design practice. Sly then created artworks based on music he would write, record and produce in Ableton Live. He continues to develop his visual work with large-scale illustrations and paintings. These works explore the expression of characters in abstracted settings, and how those characters reflect our thoughts and behaviors. His music experiments with hip hop, pulling from jazz, funk, electronica, rock and pop, among other genres. Sly continues to construct work through different mediums, in order to map various forms of emotion and movement.

@elviramichelle_ 
@sly.watts