The more than 60 paintings in the new Cabildo exhibition “Michalopoulos: Mystical Expressionism” range throughout the artist James Michalopoulos’s 40-year professional career, all calling-card depictions of classic New Orleans vernacular architecture, most rendered in his quavering, paint-heavy, color-rich, dreamy, dramatic style, which he describes in exhibit wall text as “liberated engagement, not characterized by intellectual deliberation, a direct experience.”
The labels on the paintings are meticulous in describing the exact style of house or building depicted – shotgun, Italianate, double gallery, etc. — and often offer a history lesson in how and from where the style evolved, which are learnings that tourists wandering in from Jackson Square can take home.
A Pittsburgh native who is arguably New Orleans’s most successful living artist, Michalopoulos could not have imagined a career retrospective in an exhibition space he once literally looked up to. It takes place only a few steps and decades away from the artist’s start in New Orleans, painting plein air on French Quarter streets.
“I never once thought of this possibility,” he said during a recent pre-opening interview in the gallery. “Back in the days when I was on the other end of Pirate Alley, my focus was much more on learning, on mastering perspective, light and dark, on composition and commerce, on making it all work. It’s an interesting thing. I thought at one point to name the show ‘From One End of the Alley to the Other,’ which would have been an apt summary. And here it is. No, I didn’t foresee it coming, and you never know what life will bring.”
Print and podcast coverage here and here. Gallery photos are below.
