November 11 - December 2
Opening reception Second Saturday, November 11, 6-10pm.
Gallery 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!
Rooms 1 & 2
Tom Walton, Wisper 1, oil on canvass, 31 x 42 inches, 2022
Tom Walton, Wisper 2, oil on canvass, 31 x 42 inches, 2022
Tom Walton, Wisper 3, oil on canvass, 31 x 42 inches, 2022
Listening Space
Tom Walton
This show which will span room1 and room2 serves as a bridge between subjects, yet the underlying exploration has a through line. A series of three paintings is part of a series of paintings where I worked collaboratively with people exploring how communication is interpreted over time. The other represents a series of image of common shared environments, hotels, courtyards, and interiors of homes. I wanted to explore painting the environments over time could unfold how they operated on me and in turn the paintings.
When collaborating with the people who posed for the paintings, I became interested in depicting multiple views of them. Every session well would be in a different emotional state, depending on how the time and moment affected us there would be a different feeling. While I was depicting them, I was aware that I was projecting my own emotions onto them through empathizing with what I perceived we shared. As is my continued intention, the emotions represented in the expression of the face and body language in relation to the space and formal elements of the paintings were not curated but rather intuitively found. For certain pieces, I became interested in observing what I felt were different aspects of our psyche. As space and time were playing a role in this it felt the most appropriate to represent multiple versions and parts of the models. Rather than representing movement in time, it felt more like an expression of their psyche as a daydream space.
The paintings of spaces were meant to be an environment for people to inhabit once I had developed the space. As the paintings developed, I wanted to see if the environments could hold gravity without a person. The more time I spent in the space the more creative license I gave to the depiction of the space. I found that the environment held different meaning for me over time. I became increasing aware of how I was seeing the space in relationship to myself, what I chose to focus on and how I represented was in relationship to my subjective human experience.
Tom Walton, 42, was born in Oxford, United Kingdom. As an infant he relocated to Washington, DC. Beginning at age 16, he studied with the artist Carlo Pittore. Walton received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004 and his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in 2007. In 2020 Walton had solo show of his paintings at Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia PA. He is a recent recipient of an Elizabeth Greenshields grant. In 2021 he was an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans. In 2021 he had a solo show of his paintings at The Front Gallery where he is a current member. He has a painting in the permanent collection of the Woodmere Museum located in Philadelphia PA. In 2018 he curated a National show of paintings titled “Real to not Real” at Southeastern Louisiana University where he is an Assistant Professor of Painting. His paintings have been published in INPA9 and the New American Paintings 154 Southern edition. Walton lives in the uptown neighborhood of New Orleans.
Rooms 3 & 4
Nurhan Gokturk, Twice Told Tales, Oil and Ink on paper, 11 x 30 inches, 2022
Behind the Black Veil
Nurhan Gokturk
Anything that can appear, can disappear. The veil is not a mystery, it is a mist, a fog, dark and dense, and yet shallow, neither far or deep, concealing features, casting doubt and intercepting sight.
Nurhan Gokturk is a Contemporary Turkish American Interdisciplinary Artist. He is known for his wide-ranging practice including drawings, paintings, sculptures, prints, photography and installation. His projects have been featured at the Venice Biennale, Aqua Art Fair, Art on Paper, Contemporary Art's Center New Orleans, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, The Onsite Gallery in Toronto. He has been featured in Metropolis Magazine, Gambit's Top 40 under 40, was Interviewed on NPR, and was awarded the Architizer A+ Award.
He is the Collectors Club artist for The Contemporary Arts Center and a member of The Front artist collective. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Arts Council of New Orleans is a faculty member of The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.
Nurhan coordinated the first major Habitat for Humanity Buckminster Fuller Design Science Exhibition in Istanbul, Turkey. Formerly, he held the position of a senior designer at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and at Kohn, Pederson, and Fox, both in NYC. Nurhan received a master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute.