Three years ago, Surreal Salon juror David Ball stood in front of the Baton Rouge Gallery crowd and gave his interpretation of the art hanging on the walls behind him.
“It got us thinking, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’” said Jason Andreasen, executive director of the Baton Rouge Gallery.
Ball’s oral presentation inspired the Baton Rouge Gallery staff to begin the once-a-month event called ARTiculate. As the pun implies, ARTiculate involves artists informally talking about their art, answering questions and explaining inspirations following the exhibition’s opening at the gallery.
September’s display includes contemporary art of varying styles by Scott Finch, LSU Art Professor Kelli Scott Kelley and John Harlan Norris.
Typically, all artists participating in that month’s exhibition attend, but sometimes that can be difficult. According to Andreasen, while some artists love the idea of describing their creative process, others find it to be more of a challenge.
Finch is part of the latter. While he participates and appreciates ARTiculate, Finch admits that being a visual person can make talking about his art difficult. Still, Finch thinks of the Sunday afternoon talk as an “exercise.”
“People want to know what pictures mean. That’s frustrating,” said Finch, who uses the event to push himself as an artist.
Titled Sharp/Blunt, Finch’s exhibit presents two different types of work. One involves bright china markers on mixed paper, while the other is a subtractive process where black India ink covers a white board, and the artist scratches the ink away with special tools creating a layered image.
As a professor, Kelli Scott Kelley said she is very comfortable with the event and feels that it breaks barriers between artists and audience. Her exhibit, The Gift, features mixed-media drawings of metaphorical narratives on repurposed paper, mostly made up of her son’s discarded schoolwork. In the same room on the opposite wall hangs Occupants Test Prints by her former student, John Harlan Norris.
Of the gallery’s 54 artist members, Norris is one of three who live outside of Louisiana and was unable to attend this month’s ARTiculate. The display includes his usual oil-on-canvas paintings along with an introduction to his new mixed-media prints. Each colorful image depicts a faceless portrait identifying with a certain profession.
All of Baton Rouge Gallery’s exhibitions includes varying styles of contemporary art from photography to sculpture. According to Andreasen, the goal is not to put on a show focused on one subject matter. Andreasen hopes that everyone who walks through the doors can identify with at least one of the artists’ styles.
With an average crowd of 20 to 30 people, Andreasen said he would love to see 200 guests at ARTiculate, but that the intimate atmosphere is less intimidating and makes the artists more approachable, “dispelling the idea that the artist is the crazy beret-wearing person unlike us.”
As a co-op with BREC, the Baton Rouge Gallery’s ARTiculate event, featuring some of Louisiana’s most distinguished artists, is free and open to the public.

Gallery • 7 Photos

Angela Major

A series of Kelly Scott Kelley's drawings are on display Sunday, September 8, 2013 at The Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art.