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Baton Rouge Gallery

center for contemporary art

1442 City Park Avenue

Baton Rouge, LA 70808

www.batonrougegallery.org

Baton Rouge Gallery features Betts, Delony, Jahnke and Kelly in March

BATON ROUGE – Beginning on Feb. 28, Baton Rouge Gallery – center for contemporary art (BRG) will feature the work of four of its artist members: Judi Bets, Mary Claire Delony, Ross Jahnke and Brian Kelly. The exhibition will run through Mar. 25, 2010.

A First Wednesday Opening Reception for these four Artist Members and their work will be held on Wednesday, Mar. 3 from 7-9 p.m.

Judi Betts has been one of Baton Rouge Gallery’s longest-standing Artist Members, having joined the Gallery in 1969. Betts has achieved a strong international reputation for her transparent watercolor paintings. Her combining of articulate design, solid technique and vibrant colors has led to a number of award-winning paintings. She holds an Artium Baccalaureus from Indiana University of Fine Arts and a Masters of Education from Louisiana State University. She is a member of the National Watercolor Society and is in demand as an instructor, lecturer and juror. Betts has also developed workshops taught internationally and has given invitational sessions for watercolor societies in Norway, Puerto Rico, Sweden and Canada. Her work has appeared in various books and magazines in addition to the two award winning books she herself has penned: Watercolor…Let’s Think About It! (5th Printing) and Painting…a Quest toward Extraordinary.

WATERCOLOR…Magical Shapes, Betts’ exhibition at the Baton Rouge Gallery will showcase her knack for luminous and boisterously crafted works on paper.

Having joined BRG as an Artist Member just last year, Mary Claire Delony is one of the Gallery’s newest Artist Members. Her paintings depict stories that embody joy, happiness and passion, constructing metaphors based on personal myths and inspired by the classics of literature, storytelling and music. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the New York Studio School and a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Painting) from Louisiana State University. During her time in New York City, Delony studied under artists Bill Jensen, Carl Plansky, Carol Robb and John Newman. Delony has participated in juried exhibitions in New York State and Louisiana and has contributed to public art auctions. She is currently a Talented Visual Art Teacher with East Baton Rouge Parish as well as an Adjunct Faculty member with the LSU School of Art. She also completed a residency at the International School of Paintings, Drawing and Sculpture, Montecastello di Vibio in Umbria, Italy.

Delony’s sophomore exhibition at BRG, Once Upon a Time, is a quirky and celebratory exploration into the rich history of narrative paintings. Always with an explosion of happiness, her female characters in these large works are saturated with both traditional and personal themes. Whether decked out in gold or aqua, each painting is a statement about the artist’s own joy of making and telling stories.

An Artist Member of BRG since 1992, Ross Jahnke’s work focuses on traditional oil paintings combined with screen printing. What unifies all the works is his consistent conceptual approach to the figure and screen print as a tool to invigorate and delineate space. He earned his Master of Fine Arts (Painting & Printmaking) from Louisiana State University and a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Painting & Drawing) from the University of Wisconsin. Jahnke is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Nicholls State University and teaches printmaking, drawing and papermaking.

Recent Work, Ross Jahnke’s BRG exhibition during the month of March, includes paintings and prints of everyday objects. One recent addition to the artist’s working style is works drawn or painted by candle light. Enticed to try the technique by his colleague Gaither Pope, Jahnke has enjoyed the challenges and the results of this unique approach.

Brian Kelly joined Baton Rouge Gallery as an Artist Member in 1999, having received a Bachelors of Fine Arts (Printmaking) from Northern Illinois University and a Masters of Fine Arts (Printmaking) from Louisiana State University. Following his graduate degree, Kelly studied non-toxic intaglio techniques at Frogman’s Press at the University of South Dakota and plate, photoplate, and waterless lithography at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography at the University of New Mexico. Kelly also spent one summer in San Paulo, Brazil at the GLATT/MAGOS Atelier. Since 1999, Kelly has taught printmaking in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. From that time Kelly has coordinated the Marais Press and, in 2004, became department head for the Department of Visual Arts, holds the rank of Associate Professor and is the Coca-Cola/BORSF Endowed Professor. He has published and been reviewed in over 27 publications, received numerous artistic and research grants in addition to curating and organizing numerous exhibitions throughout the state of Louisiana.

Kelly’s exhibition at BRG, Recent Prints, takes the viewer on a journey into the unseen and the unknown. His work draws on influences from environments in Louisiana, Utah, New Mexico, Montana and Colorado. These representational narratives talk about specific experiences and places that are both social, personal and political in nature. Kelly adopts and personifies animal forms as specific characters within these narrative events to speak metaphorically about personal and social issues.

Come play with Pop Idols at BRG

At 8 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 27, Baton Rouge Gallery’s Flatscape Video Art Series will round out its 2010 season with the final installment of this year’s program: I’ll Be Watching You: Tales of Celebrity Obsession. Flatscape will conclude its 2010 run by contrasting two distinct films that mock and/or venerate celebrity and youth culture.

The first film of the night, Grapefruit (1989), a film by video artist Cecilia Dougherty, is a playful work featuring an all-female cast portraying The Beatles who are presented as pop culture icons that stop being people and become projections of society’s needs and desires. Based on the writings of Yoko Ono, Dougherty’s film mixes themes of female drag, pop hero worship, and cultural territory out of the norms of mainstream society. Grapefruit will definitely delight lovers and haters of all things banal and mythically sub-cultural. 

Cecilia Dougherty’s artistic pursuits include video, photography as well as the web. Her work has been cited in books including “Lesbian Art in America”, “Chick Flicks”, and “Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories”. Also, she has been in publications including New Art Examiner, Framework and Millennium Film Journal. She is currently on faculty at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, The Vermont College of Fine Arts, The Cooper Union (New York) and the International Center of Photography (New York).

The final film of the night is Laura Parnes’ experimental 1998 film, No is Yes. This unsettling, quick-paced MTV-style feature follows two teenage girls who are driven – accidentally – to horrifying and unspeakable interactions with their favorite alternative rock star. The film explores the commoditization of mutiny and revolution as it is marketed to youth culture through the eyes of two alienated youths.

Parnes’ body of work often blurs the line between conventional narrative film and experimentation. Featuring highly stylized sets, costumes and non-linear storylines she deploys experiences that cause audiences to physically and mentally enter her subconscious. Parnes’ work has been widely exhibited in Switzerland, Germany, Lithuania, and Spain and also throughout the continental United States.

Visit batonrougegallery.org for details on all Flatscape engagements. As always, admission to each installment is free for all Baton Rouge Gallery members and just $5 for non-members.

Viewer discretion is advised. All content may not be suitable for all audiences.

Sundays@4 hosts 12th Annual Women’s History Month Poetry Reading

On Sun. Mar. 14, Baton Rouge Gallery’s Sundays@4 program will celebrate National Women's Month with a poetry reading by local female poets. This will be the twelfth consecutive year that Baton Rouge Gallery hosts the annual Women's History Month Celebration & Poetry Reading. A broad spectrum of Louisiana women will participate, from published poets to first time readers. Each will present one original poem, about women, history or both.

Poets slated to read include: April Armstrong, Marilyn Burel, Ava Haymon, Les Ann Kirkland, Becky Larkin, Angie Ledbetter, Marilyn Shapley, Cynthia Toups and Tasha Weatherspoon plus many more. This year is sure to not only shed light on the female experience, but also speak to the diversity of experiences that women share.

“What strikes me as most important is the sense of inclusiveness, combined with the freedom to express yourself differently - as an individual. Poetry is defined differently for different people and they write for different reasons. At this event these insights into other worlds are viewed with healthy curiosity, gratitude and tolerance. It's definitely enjoyable,” said this year’s coordinator, Les Ann Kirkland.  

The program, which begins at 4 p.m., is free and open to the public.

Want to Tango with Sundays@4?

On Sunday, Mar. 7, Sundays@4 will welcome Tango Lagniappe for an entertaining and informative demonstration of the wonders of Tango. Tango Lagniappe is a group that promotes and performs Argentine Tango in the capital area. Under the direction of Elaine and Ted Strenski and Vonnie Brown, Tango Lagniappe has now flourished in Baton Rouge for more than three years. The troupe’s winning dance combination includes Jennifer Pike, Nalini Raghaven and Mario Lozanov. Jennifer Pike will present a brief history of Argentine Tango and Mario Lozanov will captivate the audience with this enchanting music. Members from Tango Lagniappe will move to the tango, vals and milonga.

The program is free and open to the public and begins at 4pm

Sundays@4 features EBR Parish String Recital

On Sunday, Mar 21, Sundays@4 is proud to host the East Baton Rouge Parish String Recital. This program, under the direction of Dr. Yonghao Pan and David Hinson, will feature talented music students from Baton Rouge Magnet High School, McKinley High School and Woodlawn High School. They will be performing works by Lully, Handel, Boccherini, and Beethoven.

Also featured will be the Talented Music Chamber Ensemble performing works by Tchaikovsky, Schubert Beethoven and the Bach Violin Concerto and will feature LSU Violin Professor Dr. Lin He.

The concert is free and open to the public and begins at 4pm

Baton Rouge Gallery is supported in part by funds from the Louisiana State Arts Council and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge (through the Decentralized Arts Funding Program) and a grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge through the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Gallery also receives support from BREC, the Community Fund for the Arts, WRKF, its Community Members and the late Paula Manship.