(New Orleans, LA) FERRARA SHOWMAN GALLERY is pleased to announce the fourth solo exhibition of Atlanta-based artist Bonnie Maygarden entitled Rainbow’s Bend. Her first exhibition since the pandemic, the show unveils twenty-seven of the artist’s characteristic hyperreal, trompe l’oeil paintings, as well as, a new body of multimedia work employing articulated, nylon hosiery. Maygarden confronts the issues which stifle painting in the digital age through illusion, repetition, disruption, and temporality. Confounding the viewer, her paintings may at once read abstract or indiscernibly representational - seemingly three-dimensional, but only with further patient inspection, understood. Rainbow’s Bend will be on view from 28 May through 13 July 2024 with an opening reception on Saturday 1 June coinciding with the Arts District of New Orleans’ (ADNO) monthly First Saturday Gallery Openings from 5 – 9 PM.

Maygarden elaborates on her artistic practice . . .

I come back to color and light as an entry point to emotion and memory. The surface of the canvas and the abilities of painting techniques to play with the eyes perceptions allow me to consider the quiet moments in reality in which our perceptions of the physical world expand in meaning.

My work is informed by and reacts to a culture defined by a digital experience, yet the work’s imagery is created entirely by hand, using only paint. I seek out natural phenomena and illusions that feel familiar to an eye accustomed to imagery found on a screen. My work references recognized technology-created images, such as photography, x-rays, or Photoshop filters. Through referencing the digital image as well as our natural world, I am able to make paintings that walk the line between something and nothing; that both play to our expectations of the disposable contemporary image and the valued tradition of the handmade. 

BONNIE MAYGARDEN is a multimedia artist who received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tulane University and her BFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions both nationally and internationally in various museums, galleries and alternative venues including: Université Lumière Lyons (Lyons, France), Camden Art Center (London, England), Pratt Institute, Icosahedron Gallery (New York, NY), Callenwolde Fine Arts Center (Atlanta, GA), The Front (New Orleans, LA) and New Orleans Creative Center for the Arts.
Several notable publications have featured Maygarden’s work; including, Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles, Arts & Antiques Magazine, NOLA DEFENDER, and INVADE NOLA. Curator and art critic Tori Bush featured Maygarden’s Master’s thesis exhibition “Hyper Real” in her May 2013 Artist Spotlight. She also received an honorable mention for her work in UNO Visual Arts Leagues Juried Exhibition in 2013 from Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Museum and former Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Her work was reviewed in ArtForum and Burnaway for her inclusion in “Staring at the Sun” curated by Craig Drennan. Her paintings were also featured in New American Paintings (No. 112, June/July Issue) concurrently with her premier solo exhibition at Ferrara Showman Gallery entitled “Desert of the Real”, as well as Issue No. 124. Her work was selected twice for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s LA Contemporary Juried Exhibition, juried by Jonathan P. Binstock of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance (2014) and Courtney J  Martin Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Dia Foundation (2018) who awarded her work second place in the exhibition. Maygarden has been exhibited nationally at art fairs including:  Art Miami, Pulse New York, Miami Projec, Texas Contemporary, San Francisco Art Fair, the Seattle Art Fair, and VOLTA12 in Basel, Switzerland. In 2016, her work was featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin. Maygarden was also awarded a  fellowship at the Slade for the London Summer Intensive Residency Program 2016.
Maygarden’s work appears in the collections of Perez Art Museum Director Franklin Sirmans (Miami), private collectors Lester Marks (Houston), Myrna Kaplan (Chicago) and Susan and Ralph Brennan (New Orleans), and corporate collections of Advantage Capital Management Corporation, RPM Casting and University Medical Center (New Orleans). Maygarden has been commissioned for Hollywood feature films by several production companies including: ABC Studios, Flashfire Productions, Danni Productions, Georgia Film Fund Seven, Abby Normal Pictures, Lamb Productions, Furlined, LLC, and The Goats, LLC. Maygarden lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia and is represented by Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans.

For more information, press or sales inquiries please contact Gallery Director Matthew Weldon Showman at 504.343.6827 or matthew@ferrarashowman.com. Please join the conversation with FSG on Facebook (@FerraraShowmanGallery), Twitter (@FerraraShowman), and Instagram (@FerraraShowmanGallery) via the hashtags: #BonnieMaygarden, #FerraraShowmanGallery, and #ArtsDistrictNewOrleans.