February Featured Artists:

Carlee Arnold, Rayne Housey Bories and Carlos Gamez de Francisco

It’s Carnival time in New Orleans - a time for revelry and joy. As we celebrate the Season, we are featuring new work by Carlee Arnold, Rayne Housey Bories and Carlos Gamez de Francisco, a recent addition to the gallery. Scroll below for more information on each artist and their work.

Carlos Gamez de Francisco

Carlos Gamez de Francisco is a Florida based artist. He grew up in post-revolutionary Cuba and was educated in an academic style heavily influenced by the Russian Academy. At the age of five, he determined that he would be an artist and by the age of fifteen he was devoting 8 hours a day to to his studio practice. Upon immigrating to the United States and teaching himself English, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. His classical training is based on history and portraiture of royalty and upper class subjects in which garments were exquisite and surroundings emanated status. But he felt that “Everybody has the right to be in a portrait” and embarked upon a series in which everyday people were featured. For more information on the artist and to see his available work, please, click here.

carlee Arnold

Carlee Arnold is an Alabama based artist. After receiving a degree from the University of Alabama, Arnold took art classes with a local instructor and continued her self-instruction at home in her makeshift studio. Arnold works primarily in “poured media” allowing the fluidity of various pigments to form patterns and formations across the surface of the canvas. She is inspired by color, movement and the shape of water in her non-representational work. Carlee’s work is included in a number of private and corporate collections including a Fortune 500 company. To see more of Arnold’s work, please, click here

rayne HOUSEY BORIES

Rayne Housey Bories is a New Orleans artist, who graduated from Tulane University with a dual degree in history and art history. She later pursued a Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation through the Tulane School of Architecture. Before establishing a full-time studio practice, she worked for a well-known historic refinisher and decorative painter - an opportunity that allowed her access and instruction on the art of replicating elements of the past. In her portraits, Bories uses 18th and 19th century European portraiture for inspiration and adds an element of a whimsy - a slice of fruit or a crustacean - to obscure the subject’s face. This “tongue in cheek” element is meant to add a bit of humor to the formality of portraiture while also honoring the gifted artists of the past. To see more of Bories’ work, please, click here.