Return to New Orleans

I spent the first 22 years of my life growing up in New Orleans and I still find it hard to explain, even harder to paint, it is an enigma. Its iconic language fills your senses with joy. Such terms as, Voo-doo, Jazz Fest, gumbo, Mardi Gras, Po-Boy, Bourbon Street, Café du Monde, brass bands, second lines, jazz, Louis Armstrong, French Quarter, shot-gun house, Creole, street cars, river boat, red beans & rice, Fats Domino and of course Mardi Gras Indians, creates a gumbo of confusion although it’s all good. Make you want to have a good time.

There is another dynamic to the city, its light, its atmosphere, the incredible rain storms that last for only a minute as the sun shines across the street from a down pour. Its an atmospheric light show that plays rhythms across the facade of its architecture.

I have returned to New Orleans countless times over the last 56 years to attempt to capture its essence on canvas. Its intense sunlight slashing and criss-crossings shadows across the facade weatherboards of shot-gun houses. Its syncopated light rhythms dancing through the oak trees and street corners. The colors changing again when it rains. I hear all of its in colors of the old town speak to me, It draws me back again and again.

​

​