July 8 - August 6, 2023
Opening reception with live performance by Sly Watts on Second Saturday, July 8, 6-10pm.
Gallery open hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm.
Be sure to check out The St. Claude Art Rag for more info on the Second Saturday Art Openings on St. Claude!
Room 1
and erson fun k, headwind, 16 x 20 inches, acrylic on canvas.
wind \ unwind
and erson fun k
‘wind / unwind’ seems to be many things a pile of effects, textures, drones & whispers. I'm thinking about resonance, flutter, unwinding my neurosis, being free as the wind, and winding with my loves to become stronger than I am alone. While unabashedly anderson funk, the show is only possible due to the thousands of people, places, & plants who have touched me, poked me, left me notes, pushed me, gotten out of my way, and reassured me that slowly slowly & listening for truth is the only way.
Come see!
Talk about what you feel,
Ask for anything,
and fun
anderson funk is a man in search of beauty connection and truth. He has worked as a stonecutter, grocer, teacher, engineer, pedicabber to support his making of a creative life. He is a radio dj on WTUL, an artistic contributor to the theater, an avid reader, and occasional writer.
He earned a mechanical engineering degree from Vanderbilt and an Master’s of Fine Art from MICA.
He has grown in TX, PA, TN, WI, CO, CA, OR, MD and currently resides in New Orleans LA
Rooms 2 + 3
Sly Watts, THE SKY IS FALLING, Acrylic, Charcoal & Oil Pastel on Canvas, 96 x 96 inches, 2021.
DIMENSION TRAVELLER
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NUGRAFUNK
SLY WATTS
These works explore form, abstraction and character and their relationships to one another. I find their parallels fascinating and am using them to understand the world around me and how to exist in it. Particularly, in the gaze of the art world, I’ve decided that I am in complete control of that decision. I ask myself “how do we (as black artists) exist in forms that constrict us? (or don’t).” So I’m using this work to establish a manifesto on formlessness. Each work is used to create space for shape to take on fluidity and movement, as I locate my sense of belonging. Many of the experiences in my life have drawn me to investigate subjects and concepts that typically polarize the general public, mostly because of their relationship to conformity, and the tense/cathartic dynamic around embracing them. Our fears. Taboos. Ego. Deviance. Our Rebellion. In this work, I focus on depicting figures as anything from evocative, to dramatic, to playful. I’ve also found interest in highlighting frustration, anxiety, vanity and so forth. My manipulation of shape, perspective, and material is a resistance, a surrealist protest against monoliths of black expression. I believe to identify our raw essence is to identify the very processes in the subconscious that drive our understanding of the forms around us, and the characters we become in the spaces we occupy. To be unbound by fear and rigid structure is to become alive, to become animistic, to discover a mutation in oneself amongst normalcy. I find that is freedom. To be to one who exists as is, despite the pressure to be critical or consumable enough for a foreign audience. That is what I believe abstraction is about. Demonstrating that things are not what they seem. Thankfully, we are beings who take on forms and characters that are beautifully complex.
Sly Watts was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He develops music, large-scale illustrations, paintings, and animations that depict the rhythm and motion of people and places. The son of a New Orleans percussionist and music producer, Sly’s earliest musical memories are in his dad’s make-shift studio before it was lost in Hurricane Katrina. The family evacuated to Dallas where an elementary school teacher assigned Sly daily journal writing. He began writing in rhyme about Katrina and was encouraged to continue processing in this way. At that time he was also drawing complete character narratives that placed a version of himself inside his imagined worlds. When the family moved back to New Orleans, Sly’s mom purchased an electric piano. Sly began playing repeating riffs and a synthesis of his visual art and storytelling began to take shape. As his passion continued to deepen, Sly's father allowed him to use his digital audio software to make his own beats and samples. When he was a sophomore in high school his father gave him a looper that came with a version of Ableton Live and opened him to a more professional realm of sonic composition. He then taught himself several other creative and professional skills, including graphic design, illustration and animation. He has had work published in various zines and exhibitions. Some notable exhibitions include Uptown Laundry, a Prospect.5 exhibition at Beaubourg Theatre, and Kristina K. Robinson’s The Matrix of Creativity: Where the River Meets the Sea, the most recent edition of Welcome to the Afrofuture at the New Orleans African American Museum. He is a current exhibiting member of the Front Gallery and is the Digital Media Assistant at the Joan Mitchell Center. He performs regularly in and around the Gulf South and is releasing his first vinyl LP on Sinking City Records in the fall of 2023.
Room 4
E Marshall, Apples (detail), mixed media drawing on paper, 15 x 15 inches , 2022.
E Marshall, Grey BF, mixed media drawing on paper, 18 x 18 inches, 2023.
E Marshall, Face, mixed media drawing on paper, 8 x 10 inches, 2022.
E Marshall, Hair BF, mixed media on paper, 18 x 18 inches, 2023.
Heart Like a Wheel
E Marshall
‘Heart Like a Wheel’ is a body of work that I have been tumbling since the onset of the plague. These drawings depict mental landscapes and head-spaces that I can’t explain easily. I am building a unique visual language that spins through my work and derives from a blend of cliche, universal symbols, colors and cultural references. I like to imagine tunnels and portals connecting my drawings to my mind, to the other drawings and to viewers. I noticed that I often think in “what ifs”. What if I took a left instead of a right? There are parallel story lines and soundtracks that are rolling along underneath the shell of the physical world. I also just really enjoy making bold, colorful drawings. Sometimes an apple is just an apple. Two things can be true at once.
E Marshall is a multimedia artist who has called New Orleans home since 2012. They make drawings, sew, paint and create soft sculptures. They spent their childhood in northern Minnesota, earned a BFA from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of New Orleans.