I was born in New Orleans and shaped by the culturally rich American South. Fortunate to work first as a student (Ed.D, Columbia University, 2001) then as artist and professor, I have been based in New York City for fourteen years. I now live in Poland. In 2009, I received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach and research at the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow. At Kutztown University (PA), I teach visual culture and critical studies as an assistant professor of visual studies. Since 1995, I have made small encaustic paintings and installations of mostly nature-based art. I have also documented the south through photography for as many years. I have received two Puffin Foundation awards and Pollock-Krasner grant, and Gallo award (UMass Boston), a Jerome Fellowship at the Anderson Center, a studio residency at both the Harvey Foundation, Venice, and Henry Street Settlement, Lower East Side, New York. Post-Hurricane Katrina, my work is focused on public art on the subjects of community building, memory, and place in New Orleans.
Here, I submit a series of photographs and three recent paintings.
ABOUT THE WORKS:Statement for New Orleans Photography
The decision to capture images of post-Katrina on the technology of a Holga was related to my perception of New Orleans as being imperfect, unpredictable, and somewhat clouded. The lack of clarity or precision, in particular, mimics of my memory construction of what the city is, was, or never really was. I did not begin taking pictures of the south until I left it. Photography is my pursuit of pieces of a wild, romantic childhood, now gone. What matters in this series is not documentation, but the framing that becomes a type of honoring. It is easy to pass a ruined house situated among the many standing, but focus on one abandoned residence reveals a roof with a perhaps desperate puncture. Other segments of neighborhoods, roads, and industrial sites offer their small stories. The memories remain strong. Voices clear. What are unseen in the images are the many stories I heard when I had the fortune to return. These remembrances have a place within each image. Even now, much later, I ask, "How are you doing? city of my childhood, city of voodoo and wonderment? city of more courage than I thought you could ever have?"
