Press Release

FERRARA SHOWMAN GALLERY is proud to present This City Holds Us: Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina, a group exhibition featuring ten gallery artists who experienced the storm, reinvested in the city in its aftermath, grew their studio practice as a result, and became or remain productive, successful fine artists working in New Orleans who have achieved national and international recognition..

This City Holds Us will be on view 23 July through 13 September, with an opening reception in conjunction with the Arts District New Orleans’ highly anticipated, Fidelity Bank White Linen Night –  summer art walk, that attracts over 30,000 art lovers to the arts district - Fidelity Bank White Linen Night – on 2 August from 5 – 10 PM. A second, closing reception will be held during the monthly First Saturdays on 6 September from 5 – 8 PM.

In their own words: 10 artists revisit their experiences post-Katrina and how it impacted them as artists, and citizens of New Orleans. This exhibition celebrates the resilience, persistence, and inherent passion of artists in New Orleans. 

Press Release cont'd

Ferrara reflects on his experience as an artist and gallery owner . . . 

Katrina surprised me in its rapid ascent…On Friday night I was playing board games with friends and on Saturday morning I was freaking out at the approach of this monster storm. I immediately began boarding up the gallery windows and moving all the artwork as high up on the walls as it would go…there was no time for anything else…move it all up and pray that the potential floodwaters didn’t get that high.

As a transplant, I had never had to evacuate for a storm before and like many of my fellow transplants, I didn’t really have a plan… I gathered a bag full of random clothes and my dog and hit the road only to get stranded in standstill contraflow traffic on the highway as the first bands of the storms came through.  I made my way to Baton Rouge where I slept on the floor of a friend’s home and waited for news.  It was days and no real news came besides the continual refrain of “the levees were overtopped” and “the city is flooding” and “who knows how long til residents can return.”  After waiting, wondering and worrying for five straight days, I finally got word from some filmmaker friends, that my house was still there, my gallery was still standing but the building next to it was a pile of rubble.  Nothing more than that, but at least they were still standing.

Artistically, oOne of the first bodies of work I made in response to Katrina was a series of multiple canvas installations  called Overtopped that toured the country with the New Orleans Artists In Exile traveling exhibition that travelewads to 7 cities around the country between 2007 and 2009.

When I was evacuated for Katrina all that I heard one the news was that “the levees have been overtopped, the levees have been overtopped,” and considering my fragile state of mind, it was as if these words were seared into my subconscious somehow, and I struggled to put a visual image to the words…. I had not seen any real pictures of that exact moment when the water flowed over and into the bowl, we call home but the phrase haunted me. So, I set out to make a series of works that captured that moment when things would never be the same.

With a mixture of sand and gesso and fluid acrylic, I developed a pouring process that help me visually replicate that fateful moment.  The mixture was like cornmeal and when poured slowly creeped its way “over the top” of the canvas and down the front, like the water over the top of the  levee top.  I was able to freeze the drip in time and as it dried, the mixture began to crack just like I imagined the levees had.  It was cathartic and meditative at the same time.  Over the course of the next two years, I made about 60 panels of various sizes using this process, changing the colors to vary daylight and moonlight, all with the same basic effect of recreating that moment in our collective history.

As the immediate aftermath of Katrina unfolded, I was continually checking on my artists and my friends.  Seeing who was where and how they were holding up…sharing our mutual misery and dismay.  Information was hard to come by, and communication was limited to say the least.  But every day I made the effort to be the glue that kept the gallery and our artists togethetogether,r as best I possibly could.

After almost a month of being displaced, I finally had enough, and I made my way back to the city evading the State Police checkpoints and getting back home. As I reentered, there was a crazy quiet that rang throughout the city.  It was empty, uninhabited, and just desolate.  In this eerie vacuum, I tried to restart my life and my business.

In a city devastated by a major hurricane, who was going to buy art?  So, I came up with the first of many ideas that would help New Orleans artists rebuild in some way.  With the local market in a state of shock, I rented my gallery space to a roofing company, and I took our show on the road.  The goal was to bring New Orleans artists affected by Katrina to other cities where their work could be sold and the money repatriated to NOLA for them to begin to rebuild their lives.  And thus, New Orleans Artists in Exile was born.  Over the course of the next two years, I brought the work of 20+ artists to Atlanta, New York, Miami and Shreveport.  These shows gave artists opportunity, gave these hosts communities a way to directly help artists by buying their work  and it provided inspiration for other likeminded efforts. 
 

At the same I was organizing those shows; I was working through a non-profit I started call ARTDOCS,  with another local think tank non-profit called the Idea Village,  to raise funds mone y to do a direct money give away to artists of all disciplines.  We raised over $40,000 and gave small grants to artists in need, to help them get back on their feet and start making work again.  It was a very successful endeavor in which we were able to cut through the red tape and get artists money very quickly.  We did good, and it felt good!

As I traveled around the country for New Orleans Artists in Exile, I was asked repeatedly, what impact do you think Katrina will have on New Orleans art?

My response was always the same…

Do you think that great art comes from pleasure or pain?

If you believe it is the latter which a lot of people do, then how can the artists of one of the most creative cities in the world go through such a traumatic experience and not create amazing works of art?

Did it take time for these ideas to manifest, yes it did…but in the end, like a lot of New Orleans, the local art world came out the other side stronger, richer, more entrenched in their belief in their city.

At one point, like so many other New Orleanians, I considered and explored opportunities to move to other cities.  I looked at Portland, Nashville, Atlanta, Miami and New York, but ultimately decided I was going to stay and fight. Fight for my city, and fight for the place where I discovered my creative self and began my artistic career.  As a creative, as an artist, no other city inspires on a daily basis like New Orleans.  This place is magical, crazy, creative, eccentric and extraordinary.  It is not for everyone, that is for sure. But if it gets in your blood, you can live nowhere else… that’s a simple fact.  So, I stayed and rebuilt, dug in and joined hands with my fellow creatives and plotted a course forward against all odd and in the face of great adversity.

For the past  20 years, my gallery has grown from a small locally based creative space to one with an international reach working artists on 5 continents, doing projects across the US, in Europe and the Middle East, participating in seven art fairs a year in New York, Miami, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle and Basel, Switzerland and working with institutions and collections around the world. 

I have written a book on guns and art entitled Guns In The Hands of Artists.  I curated and toured an exhibition of the same name with over 30 nationally renowned artists that traveled from New Orleans to The Aspen Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Art Basel in Miami Beach, The New America Institute and Fairfield University.

The gallery’s growth has been greatly influenced by my now partner Matthew Showman who moved to NOLA in 2011. Another silver lining from Katrina was the amazing influx of talented young people who saw in New Orleans, an opportunity to reshape an American city.  They came with big hearts and big minds and their impact on this city has been profound….and we are truly grateful.  Matthew was one of those people. Matthew has shepherded the gallery from small time space to big time gallery.

As I look back on Katrina and consider how it affected my gallery and my life, it is hard to put into words.  It was such a profoundly horrible experience to have gone through.  One that I don’t choose to remember, and that is painful to ponder.  It rocked my world, devastated my home and shredded the very fabric of my existence, but as I said before, I do believe that great art comes from pain and this profound experience made me, my city and my fellow New Orleanians stronger, harder, smarter and more creative.  We had the, hopefully, once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape a major American city and we have done just that…and the arts have played critical role in that.  Artists came to New Orleans and added their voices to our chorus. They invested their time, money and energy and it shows.  We are stronger now than ever, even as we still live on the precarious front line on climate change.  But we are still here, and we will be here til the ship goes down or the tide washes us away.  We are artists and we believe in this magical place that we call home.'

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 Instagram (@FerraraShowmanGallery) via the hashtags: #FerraraShowmanGallery, and #ArtsDistrictNewOrleans.