Solo show opens tonight

WHO: Virginia Parker
WHAT: Metamorphosis; Solo Art Exhibition
WHERE: Galerie Gigi, 627 Saint Peter Street (Between Royal and Chartres)
WHEN: Opening Reception Fri. November 6th, Exhibition runs from 11/6/09-11/28/09

Many write about painting, but at Galerie Gigi’s solo exhibition Metamorphosis, artist Virginia Parker paints about writing. More accurately, the painter and former journalist holds a mirror up to publishing's storied past and journalism's troubled present with her series of complex and hyper-realistic still lifes.

Parker’s series Metamorphosis couldn’t be more relevant right here – right now. As journalism and print media outlets vanish locally and nationally, profound cultural changes are taking place. Newspapers and magazines are shrinking, and independent booksellers and publishing houses are going out of business. “Last January, after the worldwide financial Armageddon hit, the acceleration of job losses and the collapse of magazines and newspapers was phenomenal,” Parker says.

At first journalism seemed endangered, a casualty of the shift in information delivery from actual to virtual, paper to Internet, but as Parker pulled the elements together, what began as the depiction of a calamity became one of evolution. Several of the canvases present the obsolete tools of writers – from movable type and printing plates, to quill pens and typewriters.

“Metamorphosis involves the porous border between extinction and evolution,” says the decidedly glass-half-full artist. "Inherent in these discarded relics is the implication that although the way we publish the stories changes, the stories will continue to be told,"

As the medium and the method for communication shifts, the shape of publishing’s future is still tantalizingly undefined. Parker's contemporary Nature Morte series with its elements of Vanitas paintings, uses visual metaphors and social commentary to present both the catastrophe, and her belief that journalism will survive.

Please join us on Friday November 6th, 6-8pm at Galerie Gigi for an opening reception with the artist. The exhibition runs at Galerie Gigi from November 6th– the 28th, Thursday through Sat 11am to 5pm. For more information visit www.galeriegigineworleans.com or contact Galerie Gigi director, Lindsay Viner at (713) 385-7890 or lindsay.viner@gmail.com.