Events

About the artist: Born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, George Rodrigue (1944-2013) received his formal training at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now UL Lafayette) followed by the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California. Unlike his classmates, he risked returning home, bravely choosing Louisiana over California and New York to pursue a career in painting. The year was 1969, and Rodrigue felt compelled, he said, “to graphically interpret the Cajun culture,” something the young artist recognized as disappearing in the modern world. His keen observation regarding his heritage, as well as the landscape of Southwest Louisiana, led Rodrigue on an extraordinary artistic and personal journey over the next 45 years. Furthermore, his simple, heartfelt decision to return home to Louisiana ultimately catapulted him to world-renowned status.

Rodrigue noted in his book, The Cajuns of George Rodrigue (1976, Oxmoor House), that when the Cajuns arrived from Canada following Le Grand Dérangement in 1755, “The waterways of Louisiana were the highways. We had no roads; we just had the water. They were the natural fairways for commerce, development, and everything necessary for settlers to expand.”

In Rodrigue’s paintings, the roads and rivers blend as one, and are one and the same. Rejecting the spacious sky of traditional European-style paintings, he pushes a large oak to the front of his canvas, cropping the top of the tree so that the light shines in the distance and is small beneath the branches. In hundreds of his paintings, it is a river or road that invites the viewer into Rodrigue’s imaginary world, one that feels like Louisiana, and onto a painted path that leads to a symbolic, hopeful light.

When the Blue Dog enters Rodrigue’s world, his paintings become increasingly more colorful, reflecting changes in his life and outlook. Unlike the black bayous of his Cajun paintings, Rodrigue’s Blue Dog interpretations are surreal in both design and color. Oftentimes the rivers are blue, red, yellow, and abstracted, blending and swirling almost indiscernibly with the land and sky. Ultimately, paintings from the last year of Rodrigue’s life, as featured in this exhibition, ponder his life’s journey as never before, borrowing from the symbolism of his early paintings and the optimism of his later ones. In these intensely personal expressions, Rodrigue once again invites us into his world with a river, this time contemplating not only his life’s journey and artistic legacy, but also, with hope and curiosity, the next part of his adventure.

This exhibition was organized by the Life & Legacy Foundation and Art Tour with Wendy Rodrigue

On view May 23 – October 19, 2024

Sponsored by The Northeast Louisiana Arts Council
Juror: Kerry Inman, Inman Gallery of Houston, TX

Exhibition on view Feb 22 – May 4, 2024
Public Reception: March 21, 2024 from 5:30 – 7:30 PM

About the Exhibition
The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. First started in 1964, the Annual Juried Competition is the Masur Museum’s longest-running tradition and one of its best-reviewed exhibitions each year. Annually, 700-1000 recent artworks are submitted by artists all over the nation, in all styles and media. The Masur Museum is proud to offer cash awards totaling $3,200.

Announcing this year’s guest juror: Kerry Inman
Kerry Inman is the owner and director of Inman Gallery in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1990, the gallery has hosted over 200 exhibitions in its 33-year history. The gallery represents emerging and established artists with a connection to Texas, as well as the estate of Texas modernist Dorothy Antoinette (Toni) LaSelle. Kerry also serves on the board of the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.

Accepted 61st Juried Competition Artists

Image:

Edgar Cano-Lopez, Chrome Dance (Best in Show)

November 28, 2023 – February 3, 2024

Public Reception: Thursday, January 25, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Artist’s Talk: 6:30 pm

Live Musical Performance by Hitchcock throughout the night

John Hitchcock is a Wisconsin-based artist and musician of Comanche, Kiowa, and Northern European descent. Raised in Oklahoma on Comanche Tribal lands, he draws on his personal history to create works that fuse frenetic abstraction with layered allusions to indigenous traditions. He earned his MFA in printmaking and photography at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and received his BFA from Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma.

Blanket Songs stands as an immersive testament to the intersection of tradition and innovation, weaving together a rich tapestry of media to narrate a deeply personal story rooted in indigenous heritage. Drawing inspiration from the cultural practices of Comanche and Kiowa ancestry, this installation is an amalgamation of traditional techniques – screen printing, lithography, assemblage, neon, audio, video, and textiles – harmoniously converging to honor the legacy of the artist’s grandparents.

This program is funded under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent  those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.