Press Release

NEW ORLEANS - Heriard-Cimino Gallery presents Margaret Evangeline’s new suite of paintings, Dreaming in Quicksilver, in conjunction with the City’s Art For Arts’ Sake celebration. The Opening will be held October 6th from 6 - 9 p.m. and will be on view through October 30, 2012. The public is invited. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 until 5, or by appointment.

Margaret Evangeline’s new paintings take the viewer on a mercurial journey through the artist’s metaphors inspired by light and water. Through her title, Dreaming in Quicksilver, the artist’s metaphor suggests inspiration through a flash of light. “These paintings are about sudden jolts from imperfect understanding to illumination.” Evangeline has had an urban perspective for the last 16 years with her studio overlooking the Hudson River as well as her trips along the Hudson. She explains, “One evening while studying the light I experienced a mental picture that had more to do with the kind of thought that proceeds change than it has to do with light specifically, though I’m certain the light brought it about.” These illuminations expressed through the artist’s ideas, gestures and colors, are beautifully articulated through her new body of work. The ease in which the artist moves between colors, her choice of gestures, drips from her overloaded brush, and repetitive motion within each painting, reflects a nuanced dialogue unique and particular to this lyrical series.

Margaret Evangeline was born in Baton Rouge, LA, and lived in New Orleans before moving to New York in 1992. Evangeline received her M.F.A. and B.A. from the University of New Orleans. Evangeline has had more than forty solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad and has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the ART/OMI Foundation Artist in Residence. In 2008, Evangeline prepared a large site-specific installation on the River Thames in London on a barge across from the Tate Modern. Also in 2008, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, exhibited a mid-career survey of Margaret Evangeline’s work. The artist has an upcoming book by Charta entitled Sabachthani: Why Have You Forsaken Me? to be published this year. The book is a lament on war. Poetry, iconic images, and Evangeline's artwork make correlations between past and present injustices. In 2011, Charta published a career-spanning monograph on Evangeline’s work, written by Edward Lucie-Smith, with an introduction by David Houston.