1 September 2021 (New Orleans, LA) JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY proudly presents the 25th Annual NO DEAD ARTISTS International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Art. For the 2021 installment of the exhibition, the gallery will host works by thirteen artists from and/or working across the United States, as well as, Canada, India, Iran, and Nigeria. The exhibition will be on view from 1 September to 15 October 2021 with an opening reception on 4 September and a closing reception on 2 October (each 12-7 PM) in conjunction with the Arts District New Orleans’s (ADNO) First Saturday Gallery Openings.

The NO DEAD ARTISTS exhibition was founded by Jonathan Ferrara in 1995 to give a voice to emerging artists. The exhibition's name is derived from the old adage that artists never achieve success until they are dead. NO DEAD ARTISTS turns that notion on its head and often gives emerging artists their first break in the art world. In the 90's, the exhibition was open to New Orleans-based artists and subsequently grew to include artists of Louisiana, then becoming a national juried exhibition in 2010. And in 2014, the exhibition went international. Now in its 25th iteration, the exhibition has been a springboard for numerous artists; leading to national press coverage, recognition, gallery representation and acquisitions by museums and other prominent collections.

Each year the gallery invites a panel of renowned arts professionals and collectors to select the newest creative talents from around the world. Past jurors have included: Prospect.1 Founder and Curator, DanCameron; Museum Director, Billie Milam Weisman; Collector and Philanthropist, Beth Rudin DeWoody; MacArthur Fellow, John Scott; Whitney Trustee and Ballroom Marfa Co-founder, Fairfax Dorn; NOMA Director, Susan Taylor; former Director of the Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner; Director of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and Founder/Artistic Director of the VOLTA Fair, Amanda Coulson; ArtBridge Curator, Jordana Zeldin; Collector and MoMA Board Member, Lawrence Benenson; CAMH Director, Bill Arning; Collector and Brooklyn Museum Board Member, Stephanie Ingrassia; Collector and Prospect New Orleans Biennial board member, Nick Mayor; Director/Owner of Art Market Productions, Max Fishko; Associate Curator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, Anastasia James; Director of Perez Art Museum Miami and Artistic Director of Prospect.3 Biennial, New Orleans, Franklin Sirmans; collector Lester Marks; McNay Art Museum Curator, René Paul Barilleaux; actress and collector, CCH Pounder; curator, author, and the Sueyun and Gene Locks Artistic Director at Philadelphia Contemporary,

Nato Thompson; Managing Director of The Helis Foundation, Jessie Schott Haynes; and Executive Director of the Fairfield University Art Museum and President of the Connecticut Art Trail, Carey Mack Weber.

Of the approximate 3,000 artworks submitted to this jury by over 600 artists worldwide, only thirteen artists were selected to have their work exhibited at JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY.

::: The 25th Annual NO DEAD ARTISTS Finalists :::

KATAYOUN AFROOZ - Tehran, Iran

IBEABUCHI ANANABA - Lagos, Nigeria

ARTEMIS ANTIPPAS - New Orleans, LA

KELLY CHUNING - Eureka, MT

ANDY HARDING - Nashville, TN

HARSIMRAN JUNEJA - Ahmedabad, India

ANGELA LANE - Calgary, AB, Canada

FRANK LOCKE - Long Island City, NY

ANDREW LYMAN - Brookline, MA

ANDREW NORRIS - Green Bay, WI

KIM RICE - Baltimore, MD

STEPHEN TANIS - Wilmington, DE

MICHAEL TOLE - Tempe, AZ

Comprised of painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, collage, and installation, NO DEAD ARTISTS continues to exhibit a great diversity in media with a cohesive cross-section of the pulse of contemporary art.

Presenting thirty-seven artworks by thirteen artists, this diverse symposium ranges in media, style, and purpose from the wild and mythic paintings of Michael Tole, to Andy Harding’s alien and celestial sculptures. Other exhibition highlights include a film by Iranian artist Katayoun Afrooz, as well as haunting figurative paintings by Harsimran Juneja, Ibeacubhi Ananba, and Andrew Norris, each with their own distinct and arresting approaches to rendering the human body. Also featured are two of Stephen Tanis’ oil paintings depicting the heartbreak and turmoil of contemporary political struggles against police institutions, as well as, Frank Locke’s intimate textile art.

For the grand prize of the exhibition, one of the selected jury winning artists will be awarded a solo exhibition at JFG in 2022. Previous recipient awardees include: Nikki Rosato (2012, Washington D.C.), Marna Shopoff (2014, Indianapolis), Jenny Day (2017, Santa Fe), jointly Maggie Evans (Savannah) and Chris Barnard (New Haven) 2019, and Trenity Thomas (2020, New Orleans). Not only have past finalists received solo shows at the gallery but some have also successfully gone on to exhibit at art fairs in New York, Miami, Basel (Switzerland), Leipzig (Germany), San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, and other traveling exhibitions and museums worldwide. These artists and the NO DEAD ARTISTS exhibition have garnered great interest from curators, museums, and press and have also been acquired by many prominent public and private collections. . . Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2021 winner at the close of the exhibition.

BETH RUDIN DEWOODY

Beth Rudin DeWoody, daughter of the late real estate developer Lewis Rudin and the late Gladyce Begelman, is a native of New York. Ms. DeWoody is married to renowned photographer, Firooz Zahedi. Mr. Zahedi published a photograph book on Elizabeth Taylor called “My Elizabeth”. He also published a book called “City of Angels” for Vendome Press. Ms. DeWoody studied at the University of California at Santa Barbara where she majored in anthropology and film studies, and completed her studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City where she received her B.A. in Liberal Arts.

Ms. DeWoody curated many shows for several different art galleries between New York City, New Orleans, London and Vermont including “Inspired” at Steven Kasher Gallery, “Hunt & Chase” at Salomon Contemporary in East Hampton, “Pink Show” at Sarah Gavlak Gallery, “In Stitches” at Leila Heller Gallery,, “I Won’t Grow Up” at Cheim & Read, “Just What Are They Saying” at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, “What’s Your Hobby” at Fireplace Project, “A House Is Not A Home” at Caren Golden Fine Art, “EBay Items” at Shelburne Museum, “Luxury Goods” and “It’ll Cost You” at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, “January White Sale” at the Loretta Howard Gallery, “Bad For You” at the Shirazu Gallery in London, “Look At Me” at Leila Heller Gallery, “Please Enter” at the Franklin Parrasch Gallery, and “Really?” at Wilding Cran Gallery. There was also a show of her collection of California art from the 1940's to 1980's at the Parrish Museum in Southampton called EST-3 which was curated by David Pagel. The Norton Museum of Art has organized a couple of exhibitions to showcase Ms. DeWoody’s work, The Triumph of Love: Beth Rudin DeWoody Collects, and Still/Moving: Photographs and Video Art from the DeWoody Collection. The Taubman Museum in Roanoke, VA organized a show called “Reclamation” which featured Pan-African works from Ms. DeWoody’s collection. Chicago’s Rebuild, Expo, and Art in America exhibition titled “In The Absence of Light: Gesture, Humor and Resistance in The Black Aesthetic” featured selections from Ms. DeWoody’s collection. Ms. DeWoody has a private art space called The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach which opened in 2017 and displays works from her collection. Ms. DeWoody resides between New York City, Los Angeles and West Palm Beach.

LAURA LEE BROWN

In co-founding 21c Museum Hotels in Louisville, Kentucky, Laura Lee Brown was able to share her passion for contemporary art and to help revitalize many downtown communities. She is an avid collector of contemporary art, a distinguishing factor in the draw of the hotels. Laura Lee is a painter and a photographer in her own right. 

She is a land preservationist at heart and a leader in putting farms in easement. Laura Lee is an owner of Hermitage Farm outside of Louisville near where she lives. It is an historic agritourism destination and a working thoroughbred and sport horse farm. With her husband, she has restored one of the barns on the property to become a very popular restaurant in the country.

BILLIE MILAM WEISMAN

Billie Milam Weisman did her graduate studies in art history at UCLA and postgraduate studies in art conservation at Harvard and MIT. She was head of sculpture conservation at LACMA and later at the Getty. During this time she also worked freelance as a conservator, curator, and art consultant to several of LA’s major art collectors and museums. She serves and has served on several art and philanthropic boards. With the passing of her late husband Frederick, she took on the full time responsibility as the Director of the Frederick R Weisman Art Foundation. She currently curates from the holdings of the foundation’s contemporary art collection three or four exhibits a year at outside universities and institutions. Foremost, she is in charge of maintaining the foundation itself as a house museum, welcoming visitors to tour the estate as Frederick had wished in perpetuity.

THOMAS B COLEMAN

A native of New Orleans, Mr. Coleman graduated from Stanford in 1965. He has been the Chief Executive Officer of International-Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT) since 1972. In 2014, the Coleman family sold their interest in International-Matex Tank Terminals to Macquarie Infrastructure Company at which time he retired from the business.

Mr. Coleman is active in the New Orleans community. He was a founding member of the New Orleans Business Council. He serves on the Board and the Executive Committee of the National World War II Museum. He also served on the Board of the Contemporary Arts Center. Mr. Coleman is a past Chairman of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce. He also is a past Chairman of Junior Achievement and is the recipient of the 1992 JA Business Hall of Fame award. He is the past Chairman of Metairie Park Country Day School. Mr. Coleman is a member of the Business School Council of Tulane University. He is a past Chairman and Board member of the Nature Conservancy of Louisiana. He is on the National Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is a member of the World Presidents Organization and Chief Executives Organization.