Educator Workshop
January 23, 2013
Inspired by New Orleans:
Local Artists in NOMA’s Collection
John Scott, Spirit Gates, 1994, aluminum, 144 x
297 x 12 in.
New Orleans artist John Scott’s work was influenced by his
African American heritage and his New Orleans
upbringing. Scott attended college at Xavier University,
and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan
State University. His artistic methods were galvanized
after receiving an invitation to work with kinetic artist
George Ricky. Working with Ricky encouraged Scott to
create what Scott called a “kinetic vocabulary” that he
continued to develop throughout his career. The artist’s
research of African rituals and traditions influenced his subject matter.
Scott abstracted forms to convey universal resonance through the
suggestion of ritual.
Spirit Gates were commissioned to grace the exterior courtyard of the
New Orleans Museum of Art. They are what Scott refers to as “utilitarian
kinetic.” They can be closed and locked, to serve as gates and are also
works of art. Spirit Gates have a total of three positions, each one with
symbolic importance. While the gates in the closed position represent
New Orleans architecture, the partially open position references the
Egyptian pyramids and a history of architecture. At this position, the halfopen gates form a pyramid through which the neo-classical style of
NOMA can be glimpsed. When the gates are fully opened, they resemble
two sculptures, which Scott identifies as Yoruba Ibeji twin-figures which
are believed to bring luck to the house in which they are born. Spirit Gates
reflect Scott’s combined influences of New Orleans and African American
heritage. Scott drew inspiration from the City of New Orleans, adapting
several architectural references to the city’s architecture. The wrought
iron decorations and wooden shutters of many New Orleans homes are
referenced in Scott’s aluminum gates. Because much of New Orleans’
wrought iron was crafted by slaves, Scott pays tribute to their labor by
incorporating references to Africa.
THEMES: Architecture, African American history, African culture,
kinetic sculpture
John Scott, Alanda’s Dream Tree, 1985, painted steel, brass,
and stainless steel cable, 76 ½ x 36 78 in.
John Scott created a visual love poem for his youngest daughter in the
kinetic sculpture, Alanda’s Dream Tree. This work is from a series
Scott completed based on the African diddlie bow shape. This series
incorporates the arched bow shape which Scott adapted from hunting
bows used by African hunters. Scott’s research revealed that during a
particular African hunting ritual, the African hunters would honor the
soul of the animal they killed by turning over their hunting bows and
playing them as an instrument. Here the upturned bow is placed at the
top of the sculpture. The diddlie bow holds the moving parts and is an
important element of the kinetic sculpture. The “sounds” that emanate
from the bow have been transformed in this sculpture into metal bars
that move as if they are sound waves, creating echoes to honor the
spirits. Additionally, the piece is in a tree shape, where the vertical
metal poles resemble the shape of a tree trunk. The “bow” and the
kinetic elements become the branches and leaves of the tree. As the
horizontal parts of the sculpture move, the tree looks as if it is blowing
in the wind. Scott painted the sculpture with vibrant colors reminiscent
of African textiles. The artist says of this series: “What dawned on me
were two things: one, any line stretched between two points has all the
attributes of physics: wave, frequency, and amplitude; and two, this
work related to my culture of New Orleans music and musical
instruments.”
THEMES: African culture, kinetic sculpture, music, color, pattern
Lin Emery, Wave, 1988, aluminum, 168 x 180 x 108 in.
Lin Emery grew up in New York and Florida, and later
chose New Orleans as her home because she felt it lacked
the prejudices that encountered female artists in the rest of
the country. Although Emery’s early work was figurative,
she eventually found abstraction to be the best means of
expressing herself. Emery was greatly influenced by the
artist Ossip Zadkine whom she apprenticed under in Paris.
His philosophical approach, rather than stylistic, provided
the foundation for Emery’s aesthetic convictions. The desire
to show the multiple perspectives offered by one subject is
exercised by Emery’s addition of a kinetic element to the
sculptural object.
Emery’s aluminum abstract sculpture, Wave, blends the
sculpture into its environment. The crescent motif evokes the physical
configuration of the wave while the kinetic motion of each individual
section of the sculpture creates a rhythm. Emery seeks to represent the
spiritual harmony of nature and energy in her sculptures. Shapes that
dance through the wind, graceful movements of the shadows, and soft
reflections on the water beneath it depict nature at its purest and best.
THEMES: Kinetic sculpture, public sculpture, natural energy
Ida Kohlmeyer, Rebus 95-3D-1, 1994-1995, aluminum, 102 x 62
x 36 in.
Ida Kohlmeyer was born in 1912 to Jewish immigrants who had come
from Poland. She had a privileged upbringing and was educated in private
schools. Kohlmeyer was thirty seven years old when she took her first
painting class. Her artistic self-discovery developed into an original form
of expressionism. Kohlmeyer’s work was greatly influenced by two artists:
Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko. A giant in 20th century abstraction,
Hofmann inspired her with his theory of painting as invention. Through
Rothko she adopted his contemplative nature and physical involvement in
the act of painting. Kohlmeyer’s combining of aesthetic, cultural, spiritual,
and intellectual influences combined with the teachings of modern
masters created her pictorial language.
Ida Kohlmeyer’s art is an exercise in color. Her work is not simply
colorful, but dedicated to color. She is fluent in the language of color, as
seen in Rebus 95-3D-1, but it is the form and composition that
distinguishes her visual rhetoric. Rebus means a riddle made up of
pictures and symbols. The visual riddle that she has presented is a
combination of the gestural and symbolic aspects with her innate
playfulness of color and form. She has given no system of encoding for her
secret language and the viewer must contemplate this riddle for himself.
THEMES: Color, symbolism, abstraction
Forever, 2011, Odili Donald Odita, acrylic on
wall, 12 feet 9 inches x 113 feet.
Philadelphia-based, Nigerian-born artist Odili
Donald Odita was commissioned to create the wall
painting Forever to commemorate the centennial of
the New Orleans Museum of Art. The wall painting
extends along the wall of the first floor McDermott
Lobby and consists of three main zones separated
by gallery doors. On the southern end, bright tones
streak in like rays of morning light, conveying the
impression of beginning. On the center wall, two
planes of color converge at a centerfold, in a
butterfly or mask-like pattern. The third section, on
the northern end, consists of vertical vectors
emanating from the ground reminiscent of vegetation or city lights.
Following his prominent presentation in the 2007 Venice Biennale, Odili
Donald Odita became well known for his hard-edged abstract paintings
and murals in bright hues, reminiscent of African textiles. Shards of color
streak across canvas and walls in carefully selected colors. Odita is
inspired by an array of sources, including contemporary media-centered
culture and the duality of growing up under both Nigerian and traditional
American influences. His site-specific works are designed to enliven and
enhance the space in which they exist. “I like to get a feeling for a space,”
Odita explains, “and then try to capture the dynamics of the space. This
means not only what the space looks like, but also how it is used, how
people travel and walk through it.” Additionally, the artist’s use of the
language of color is essential to his work. Odita believes that “Color in
itself has the possibility of mirroring the complexity of the world as much
as it has the potential for being distinct.”
Eighty-seven hues were chosen by the artist for Forever, which celebrates
the vitality and diversity of New Orleans. Odita explains that the design is
inspired by the notion of crossroads. Forever represents a “Crossroads of
class, race, culture, and crossroads of space.”
THEMES: Color, abstraction, site-specific art, light
Battle Royale, 2011, Alexis Rockman, oil on wood, 96 x 216
inches in 3 panels.
Born in 1962, in New York City, Alexis Rockman grew up near the
American Museum of Natural History, where his mother worked. His
fascination with animals, theories of evolution, and the panoramic format
of natural history dioramas is reflected in his paintings. Following in the
tradition of naturalists such as James John Audubon and the American
painters of the sublime such as Frederick Edwin Church, Rockman’s work
explores how natural history is shaped by culture as well as by natural
forces.
In the monumental painting Battle Royale, Rockman depicts 54 different
species engaged in a scene of warfare set in a Louisiana swamp. Many,
such as the alligator, the black bear, the pelican, and the bald eagle, are
indigenous to Louisiana. Others, such as the house cat, the Formosan
termite, the feral hog, and the red imported fire ant, come from other
parts of the world, but are now having a significant effect on Louisiana’s
environment. Some species arrived as stowaways while others were
deliberately imported. The proliferation of these has had an adverse effect
on many plant and animal species that were already native to Louisiana.
Nutria, for example, were imported into Louisiana in the 1930s from
South America for fur farms. Since then their multiplying numbers has
resulted in widespread destruction of aquatic vegetation and marshes.
The fallen bridge in the mid-ground signifies the absence of humans from
this scene and our inability to control the situation. Each animal is
depicted in an exacting realistic style, reminiscent of the scientific
accuracy of Dutch painting.
THEMES: Ecology, biology, distopia, realism
Rigolets, 2006, Wayne Gonzales, acrylic on
canvas, 63 x 105 in.
Distance is integral when approaching the art of Wayne
Gonzales. What on close inspection may appear as dots
of paint or abstract shapes comes into focus as one backs
away from the painting. Gonzales maintains that his
work is neither representational nor abstract, but that it
exists somewhere in between and depends on the
location of the viewer. Gonzales’ series of crowd scenes
depicts monochromatic snapshots of gathered groups of
people. From a distance, the viewer can make out the
face and clothing of individuals in the crowd, but up
close the details fade away and the painterly brushstrokes in mostly blues
and grays come into focus. Rigolets represents a different style and
subject matter favored by the artist in which a vibrant, pulsating palette is
combined with a combination of stenciled layers of dots to represent
architectural spaces. Again, the focus of the painting relies on the location
of the viewer. Here, the artist alludes to the south Louisiana location
where Lakes Pontchartrain, Borgne and Catherine meet and form the
boundary between Orleans and St. Tammany Parishes. The painting was
executed in 2006, just after Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath
devastated this area near the home of the artist’s brother.
Wayne Gonzales grew up in New Orleans and attended the University of
New Orleans where he studied under painters Jim Richard and Doyle
Gertjejansen. He left New Orleans in 1988 for New York, and has built a
career exhibiting in New York and internationally since the 1990s.
THEMES: Louisiana life, optical illusion, appropriation, artistic methods
Yucca Tree Vase, 1906; Marie do Hoa LeBlanc, painter, Joseph
Fortune Meyer, potter; Newcomb Pottery, earthenware, 8 ¼ x 6
½ in.
Ellsworth Woodward was a painter but dedicated most of his life to
developing the talent of others and especially to southern artists. From
1890-1931 he was the Director of Newcomb College for Women (est.
1887). Under his supervision Newcomb became one of the largest and
important art schools in the South, encouraging educational opportunities
for women of various backgrounds. Ellsworth Woodward’s brother,
William, was also a champion of art education for southern artists. He
dedicated a great deal of his time to gain a city-wide appreciation for the
aging French Quarter, painting every aspect of the then crumbling
buildings. His efforts spurred a restoration project to save historical
buildings like the Cabildo, and later led to the founding of the Vieux Carré
Commission.
In 1894, the Newcomb College established Newcomb Pottery and began
producing art pottery which was sold to generate income for the school.
The pottery program, which produced earthenware through 1940, was
designed to make functional, commercial art while encouraging artists to
create individual works of art. Newcomb wares were embellished with
stylized depictions of the flora and fauna found in the Southern
environment in a style that was influenced Art Nouveau. As was the case
with several other American pottery studios, the pieces were thrown by
men while women executed the decoration.
Yucca Tree vase was thrown by Joseph Fortune Meyer and decorated by
Marie de Hoa LeBlanc. This vase is an example of the importance that
Ellsworth Woodward placed on matching the design to the shape of the
vessel. Stylized and simplified natural forms derived from the local flora
and fauna create a pattern that encircles the vase. Here the horizon line
encircles the vase, creating a dividing line just below the widest section of
the vase. The yucca tree and its reflection on the water, is decorated in
yellow underglaze and a polychrome gloss-glaze with a cream colored
interior.
THEMES: Louisiana plant life, pottery, stylization