BRIAN GUIDRY

Midwest debut | Two years after Cedar Rapids was struck by a devastating flood, a Louisiana artist is creating an installation at CSPS that evokes the power of nature and the mysteries of a river.

Thanks to support from the Visual Artists Network, Lafayette artist Brian Guidry will be in residence with Legion Arts April 9 to 18. His residency will include the creation of a gallery installation and an April 17 artist reception.

During his Cedar Rapids residency, Brian will re-create an installation, previously seen in Lafayette, and titled Slipstream. Assembling the installation largely from scratch, Brian and local volunteers will collect refuse from the Cedar River. These will be painted a uniform color (sampled from nature) and arranged for the installation. The color used for a similar work in Lafayette was sampled from dried Johnson Grass (Sorghum Halepense).

Also a part of the installation is a video called Kingdom, created by editing together four episodes of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, while removing all audio narration.

Guidry, who is curator at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, is a graduate of the University of Louisiana art department, with a Master's degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

While Brian considers himself primarily a painter, he also works in a variety of media, such as sculpture, environmental installations, audio and video. Environmental issues and technology, including the manipulation of nature, are recurring themes in his work.

On Sat April 17 from 10 am to 4 pm, Brian will be in the CSPS gallery to discuss his project at a public reception The reception takes place in conjunction with CRecycle Eco-Art Fest.

Exhibit opens Apr 17 | 2010
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
Free admission

Legion Arts is a VAN partner in the Visual Artists Network (VAN). This project is made possible in part through support from the Visual Artists Network Exhibition Residency, a program of the National Performance Network. Major contributors include the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. For more information visit www.npnweb.org.

Additional support for this project comes from a grant from the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Go to artist's Web site
Back to calendar
Front page