NEW ORLEANS:  Heriard-Cimino Gallery  presents an  exhibition of recent paintings by Michel Alexis.  An opening reception  will be held on Saturday, January 8, 2005, from 6 until 9 p.m.. The public is invited.  The exhibition will be on view from January 8 thru February 19, 2005.  Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10:30 to 5:30 and Saturday 10 to 5, or by appointment.
 
Michel Alexis, born and educated in Paris, has resided in New York for the past nineteen years. Alexis was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 1994, and has had solo exhibitions across the United States and in Europe. His paintings can be found in the permanent collections of the Denver Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art and the Dortmunder Kunstverein in Germany.   This is Michel Alexis’s third exhibition at Heriard-Cimino Gallery. 
 
Michel Alexis incorporates into his recent paintings  abstract compositions, subtle color combinations and  cursive lines resembling carvings or possibly an indecipherable handwriting.  Alexis embeds this kind of automatic writing into built up layers of gesso, paper and oil paint. Alexis’s earth tone surfaces allude to antiquity, yet  punctuated by seemingly random, contemporary patterns of translucent, geometrical shapes in yellow, blue and orange which appear to float on the surface.  Throughout his work, there are enigmatic references to both  a past and present world.
 
In a January, 2004, Art in America review of Michel Alexis‘s work, Jonathan Goodman wrote: “His gently curving, thin lines hold the viewer’s attention with their sensuality, and his squares and rectangles of color build up compositions notable for their balance and integrity.  Alexis’s process communicates his pleasure in a more or less musical arrangement of elements - color and line are assembled with a subtle awareness of the differences of their effects that makes them nearly readable, much as one might read the music for a string quartet.  The effects are often symbolic in nature, communicating a dense complexity.”