Small Scale works installed at Angela King Gallery 2025
“These paintings are an effort to capture the techniques and character of the larger works, but on a very small scale. They are an invitation to step closer. “
-Aaron Reichert
Jacobo Roa in the Angela King Gallery, New Orleans
Roa creates abstract work by way of realism; the emotional thing by means of intellectualism; spontaneity by way of strategy. Roa takes the artifacts from everyday culture and transforms them into extraordinary compositions. Roa was born left-handed and when he was a little boy he would write everything in reverse. His teachers thought he had dyslexia, but in fact he learned to read and to draw at a very early age. A love for drawing persisted and the backward writing reappeared in his work in his early twenties. Roa plays with images and texts in reverse, creating encrypted messages. The imagery in Roa’s work is a collection of messages, poems, letters; scientific formulas, magic recipes, classifications of ants, medicinal plants and herbs; addresses, numbers, cities, arrows, signs, compasses, names and places that inhabit his world; words in Spanish, Nahuatl, Maya, Latin, or English that have no absolute meaning but rather move and connect within his paintings, to be considered as part of a window to their worlds.
Old Spirits and Psicomagos through Roa perspective
Circus 2025, 59” x 86” mixed media, oil, acrylic on canvas
Skull Mezcal 2025, 63” x 55” Acrylic mixed media on canvas
Toro (Mil-Amores) 63” x 55” Acrylic Mixed Media on Canvas
Patterson and Barnes have been painting together for more than 20 years. Their compositions incorporate the use of many mediums including acrylic, watercolor, India ink, collage and constructions. The expressiveness of many of their paintings is heightened by the use of a purposeful exaggeration and abstraction.
What makes the paintings even more unique is that each painting is a collaborative effort between Patterson and Barnes. They feel that an individual work is enriched by the infusion of their personal creativity, interests and past experiences.
Michelle Gagliano in action
Michelle Gagliano's works, created with the support of sustainable materials and colors, aim to explore new forms of expression that reflect the need for a balance between economic development and environmental conservation, thus pushing the public to reflect on their impact on the planet and encouraging more responsible practices.
Woodrow Nash in action
Nash utilizes stoneware, earthenware, terracotta and porcelain. The sculptures are then fired electronically using a pit firing technique giving the sculptures a "raku" effect; creating an "African Nouveau" trademark that is solely his own. Each sculptural figure is unique and strikes an individual pose of poetic grace and refined detail — each telling their own story.
Tony Savoie in AKG second floor Evolve Space
Tony Savoie began his life as an artist freelancing and working for screen printers, publishing companies, and ad agencies. After many years, the question arose whether to continue on this path or attend to the family business. He chose neither direction. For those years, he had maintained a studio at home, and that was where his heart was. His decision was to concentrate on his own painting and to begin exhibiting in festival shows around the country. His work found an appreciative audience almost immediately. Blending Pop and Protest themes, his imagery — derived from his half journal, half sketchbook — ranged freely over the American landscape of beliefs, opinions and convictions.
Bacheliers mastery of art history, captivates her audience with compelling highly imaginative images that are distinct, unique, inventive and immediately recognizable. Her metaphysical, dream-like fantasies evoke feelings simultaneously powerful, peaceful, and protective. This unique “other” world, untouched by time or place, reminds the viewer of the eternal dance of transformation and regeneration.
Woodrow Nash in studio with Bisa - Greatly Loved
Nash’s sculptures transmit human delicacies and inner harmony. Examining the contemporary male and female physique, he explores the body’s natural form and mythology. Incorporating various styles and techniques utilizing stoneware, earthenware, terracotta or porcelain, Nash’s work is fired electronically, pit fired or via a “raku” effect – creating an “African Nouveau” trademark that’s solely his own. While the images are African, in general, the concept is 15th century Benin with the graceful, slender proportions and long, undulating lines of 18th century Art Nouveau.
In his pieces, Nash achieves his goal of integrating expression, complex symbolism and sophisticated aesthetics to yield striking embodiments of the human soul and sensuality. Today, the work of Woodrow Nash is collected internationally. His collectors’ demographics have no racial boundaries, and include everyone from working professionals to affluent sports figures and entertainment superstars.
What of Beauty
Everyone has beauty, but not everyone sees beauty. It comes as much from the mind as from the eye, so close your eyes and see the beauty. Though we search the world for beauty, we carry it with us always. True beauty is in the heart.
Appreciating the high tradition of corporality and light exemplified by Rembrandt, Titian, Odd Nerdrum, Andrew Wyeth and Lucian Freud, he employs a style that is both modern and timeless. His earlier exhibitions in Holland, Belgium, France and the United States (yes, New Orleans), were rich with color. His new work has evolved toward the monochromatic, using occasional colored details to capture attention, and his painting has reached new levels of clarity and power. Less, in this case, is more.
