In the mid-1950s New Orleans artist George Dunbar was hailed in New York City as among the best of his generation. Now 91, living in Slidell, he’s ready to release a new collection. He tells WWNO’s Eileen Fleming that creating new pieces is essential to sharpening his skills.
George Dunbar walked into his sleek modern home on Bayou Bonfouca, apologizing for being a few minutes late. He was busy in his studio down a gravel path, packing up selected works for his new show, called Alluvian, opening this weekend at the Callan Contemporary gallery on Julia Street.
He calls the new work his “surge series.”
“In the studio we take at least one day a week – a few days a month to experiment on using different materials and so forth.”
The “we” he mentions includes two assistants -- Lizzie Shelby and Ryan Gianelloni (jen-ah-LOHN- nee) – who were busy getting the new pieces carefully packed up for the trip to the gallery.
The new pieces are three-dimensional canvases with thin layers of colored clay that’s cooked to a paint-like consistency – then scraped to reveal the hidden colors. It’s a technique he’s mastered over the years, most notably in his work of the 1990s in distressed gold leaf.
The “surge” series may have been inspired by his expansive water view.
“I live on a bayou and certainly have seen large clumps of debris. So I think from nature you unconsciously draw some of the shapes and colors. If I look across at the marsh over here I sometimes see where it’s layered. You look at one layer as one color and another layer above it. It’s most probably unconsciously part of my pallet.”
That pallet has been developing since he left New York City in the 1950s to return to New Orleans and care for his sick mother. He started a family and worked as a land developer to make ends meet. He hadn’t expected to find accomplished contemporary artists in the city, and together they opened their own space – called the Orleans Gallery in the French Quarter.
“I’m very proud of this. We were showing in locations that were really decorators’ places. About six of us decided we wanted a real gallery – a gallery that had a lot of sterile space. That’s what artists really like. They don’t want to compete with a lot of other things, lampshades and things of that kind. And I think it was the first truly contemporary space. It was all painted white like a gallery should be. You really wouldn’t have thought that in a city that sort of people think of as being so connected with the old that there’d be that much interest with people who wanted to really participate in contemporary art.”
He’s complementing the new “surge” work at the Callan gallery with pieces from his “rag” series from the 1980s, made from rolled up cloth and acrylic. Both demonstrate what he calls “action art” depicting energy and movement.
“It’s much more fun as an artist to try and reinvent yourself because if you really get down to doing the same types of things over and over again, it’s really not as much fun. And the other aspect is that there’s more of an opportunity to discover something that is really, really different. I believe very strongly that we’re going to see within the next five or six years – that soon -- people using many more materials than they’re using now and calling them paintings. I don’t think we’re going to really think about terms of painting A just oil colors and acrylic colors. I think we’re going to use other materials.
“Well, that’s right up your alley.”
“Well I would like to believe that I’m part of that movement that is making that change for everybody. I’d like to believe that by seeing this show you’ll see one thing, paintings you wouldn’t ordinarily feel were paintings before.”
“George Dunbar, Thank you very much.”
“Thank you.”
The public is invited to meet George and see his work at a reception Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. the Callan Contemporary gallery at 518 Julia St. in New Orleans. The Alluvian exhibit runs through Christmas Day.
