Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Linda Troeller's 'The Chelsea Years

 Coup D'oeil Art Consortium is privileged to feature Linda Troller's photographic revelation of life in a unique oasis from her internationally acclaimed book 'Living Inside the Chelsea Hotel'
Schiffer Publishing , along with a restrospective representation of her distinguished books, exhibits , films , and lectures.
(Reception with book signing)


Featured Artist/Blogger Emily Farranto reviews our last exhibition Taylor Bonds 'Good Country People'



Tuesday, November 17, 2015


Good People


James Taylor Bonds   Good Country People   48 x 48 in
James Taylor Bonds
Good Country People
Coup d’oeil, New Orleans

To Ken Capone, the director of Coup d’oeil (with whom I have had many conversations about art) I said, I don’t think I like these paintings...but I don’t think these paintings are trying to make me like them. For that I totally respect them.

The characters in these paintings are, well, off-putting. Some are pitiable, inspiring the urge to politely look away. Others are kind of scary. You want to look away but you don’t. These figures, often nude, sometimes clothed in sober neutrals do not look like good country people. In fact, even the country itself looks bereft of natural beauty. Take another route altogether if you can, but definitely don’t stop your car around here. 
  
James Taylor Bonds  The Felling   30 x 24 in
I don't know if any of these characters belong to Flannery O'Connor's short story Good Country People or even if the show is referring to this story, but they certainly share the author's sensibility and the looming air of malice in so many of her stories. 

Content aside,  most of these works are painted with a narrow palette. The couple that aren't seem like they might belong to an adjacent but different body of work. The breakdown of space is complicated, the figure/ground relationship somewhere between convincing and not convincing. The surface is reserved; only occasional brushmarks rise to a texture.

Believing a couple of the works were painted in oil, I thought maybe the artist used some low-quality oil paint. Then I learned that they were acrylic. This fact can account for flatness as well as the stiffer articulations of flesh and other textures. I have to admire what the artist accomplished in acrylic but I wonder if the attraction part of the attraction/repulsion response would be even stronger with optical complexity and luminosity of oil paint. And there are passages in the The Chosen (oil on canvas), in which the flesh gets really fleshy, not quite Lucian Freud fleshy, but fleshy.

This work is sort of haunted by art historical ghosts, though I find associations hard to pin down. The palette and composition sort of echo Thomas Hart Benton. The flavor of southern gothic reminded me of George Rodrigue’s pre-Blue Dog group portraits (which, in spite of myself, I find kind of interesting) Good Country People also reminded me of a Picasso painting. two actually, that I was recalling as one: Boy Leading a Horse and Family of Saltimbanques. Maybe it was the strangely posed figures, the rigid nudity, or the psychological heaviness. (By the way, I don’t really like Picasso’s paintings but you won't hear me argue that he was a genius.)

So while I cannot say I like these paintings this artist has my attention and respect. In the end I see something really important: the evidence of work, of hours and hours of labor and consideration, highly developed skills, and most significantly an artist pursuing his own strange vision on a scale that isn’t playing around.

One more point, not about the artwork but about the gallery, Coup d’oeil. On a local level, weird is okay but ugly is not. Not this kind of ugly. Not naked hillbilly ugly. In addition to acknowledging the artist’s chops and guts, I have to appreciate Ken Capone who owns a commercial (as in for-profit) gallery. He encourages artists to pursue their work as they feel compelled to even if (I imagine) profits might not follow. This work must be a hard sell for the kind of local art buyers who hang artwork in their dining rooms. One might not want to eat, sit, or sleep below a painting like The Chosen but Ken will show it anyway. And he deserves real props for that. 

(Some nice person should buy this painting and gift it to the Ogden.)

James Taylor Bonds   The Chosen   72 x 60 in

James Taylor Bonds 'Good Country People'








This body of work by James Taylor Bonds is a depiction of a temporary people in a temporary place, both marred by ongoing strife. Presented is a fictional society in a state of flux, living among the ruins of the American South trying to make sense of long forgotten cultural relics.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Welcome Our New Gallery Assistant !


Welcome to our New Team Member:
  Gallery Assistant Paul Wright

 Please join Coup d’oeil Art Consortium in welcoming Paul Wright as our newest team member. Paul is taking on the Gallery Assistant position as of Aug 3rd. Paul comes to us as a  New Orleans native, where he has had seven years experience in fine arts/design as a YA/YA and NOCCA  alumni which offered him ample opportunities to hone his skills in creating, practicing, and demonstrating art. As an artist and as a youth advocate during those past six years, he identified opportunities for improvement, made constructive suggestions for change, and helped brainstorm solutions.
Wright works predominantly in the medium of acrylic painting portraiture, but also exercises skill in sculpture and large-scale installations. NOCCA alumni, Wright also studied illustration at Parsons the New School for Design and received training at The Cow House Studios in Wexford, Ireland.  Exhibited spaces include The Guggenheim Museum Theater, George Rodrigue Gallery, The Contemporary Arts Center, and The 5 Press Gallery. He has also been recently announced Emerging Artists-in-Residence at The Joan Mitchel Center here in New Orleans.
In addition to his experience and exuberant personality, he has a solid educational foundation and a passion for art. He is extremely enthusiastic about the focus on New Orleans Contemporary art and welcomes the opportunity to contribute to our ongoing success at Coup d’oeil. Please feel free to stop by the gallery to meet our newest team member and exhibition “Summer City.” We are thrilled to have him on board!




Friday, June 5, 2015

bread&butter reading VOL. 2

Thanks to everyone who came out Saturday for the second in the bread&butter reading series. Carin Chapman, Jen Hanks, Spencer Silverthorne, and Clare Louise Harmon helped us become a little more human by sharing their work with us. Look out for upcoming entries by these superstar readers at FOCI Arts online publication, FOCI Words.



























  





Monday, May 25, 2015

Gothamist reviews SELECT NY

Gothamist published a review of SELECT NY in Chelsea. Thanks to Scott Lynch for including us!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

BUSTED in New York

Coup is in Chelsea! This week we installed a series of bust portraits by Blaine Capone at SELECT Art Fair in NY. Have a look:






Monday, April 27, 2015

CRUX opens with a musical performance

On April 17, Coup opened CRUX, a site specific installation by Blaine Capone that was originally designed for the SELECT Art Fair during Miami Basel of December 2014.

We were thrilled to celebrate with a musical performance by flutist, Orlando Cela, an event sponsored by the New Orleans arts organization, FOCI Arts.












Wednesday, February 25, 2015

feature in Art Voices

We are positively thrilled with Anna Broome's article on Coup artist, Blaine Capone in the spring issue of Art Voices! Here's a preview—look for it in print soon! Check out what the magazine has published previously on their website: artvoicesmagazine.com