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ARTIST STATEMENT

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My first real attempt at an original body of work was a collection of paintings and drawings in the mid 1990s. It was my first foray into "painting what I knew", and focused on my friends, family, and romantic partners going about our pursuits as late teens to early 20 something blue collar kids in decaying rust belt Appalachia. This eventually evolved into a series of intimate allegorical portrait costume dramas mismatching influences from sources as varied as baroque art, Greco Roman mythology, and Elizabethan tragedies. Which in turn led into a decade exploring the costuming and rituals of the 'courir de mardi gras' events in southern Louisiana.


For the last three years I've been working on a synthesis of these threads into works exploring my childhood home and roots in Appalachian eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio and my adulthood traveling and working in the southern US, focusing on the swamps and prairies of my adopted home in south Louisiana. While technically a new body of work, in reality this is an extension of these previous bodies of work, and an elaboration of themes and subjects that I have explored since early in my career.


Unlike my previous work with the traditions of my adopted Acadiana home, these are more allegorical, metaphorical, and personal in nature. My work starts with ideas and images that strike me, an evolving set of personal symbols that I use as shorthand for universal concepts about the human condition. It work explores themes as diverse as contemporary politics and social issues, specifically opiate addiction, suicide, racism, and environmental degradation filtered through the lens of memories from childhood, folk lore, pop songs, snippets of stoic philosophy, and anything else that happens to bubble up through my subconscious.

BIO

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Herb Roe was born and spent his childhood in the Appalachian regions of Southern Ohio and Northeastern Kentucky. In 1992 he received a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio and attended his freshman year there. In the summer of 1993 he met the Louisiana mural artist Robert Dafford. He subsequently apprenticed to and worked for Dafford for 15 years on mural projects throughout the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys. As a Dafford Muralist, Roe specialized in large scale, long term historical mural projects, often connected with local Chambers of Commerce, Tourism Bureaus and Downtown Development Agencies. Many of these projects took between 5 and 10 years to complete, and ranged from 1 to 50 murals in each town. In 2007 Roe began to pursue a career as a fine artist, specializing in oil paintings depicting the history and culture of his adopted home in South Louisianas Acadiana region. His most recent series of works explores his childhood home in Appalachian eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio and adulthood traveling and working in the southern US. 

EDUCATION

  • 1992-1993 Studied at Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

  • 1993-2007 15 year apprenticeship with mural painter Robert Dafford
     

Interviews and Press

Exhibits

Solo

  • 2022  Finite Creatures, Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA

  • 2018  All That I Wanted: New Paintings by Herb Roe, BRAND NOLA Art Gallery, New Orleans, LA

  • 2017  Jour des Fantomes - Masks and Mayhem: New Paintings by Herb Roe, Mardi Gras Museum of Costumes and Culture, New Orleans, LA

  • 2016  Herb Roe : Ca c'est bon : Paintings of Courirs, Boucheries, & Festivals in Acadiana, BRAND NOLA Art Gallery, New Orleans, LA

  • 2016  Ca c'est bon : Paintings of Courirs, Boucheries, & Festivals in Acadiana, Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette, LA (curated by Mary Beyt and Brian Guidry)

  • 2014  Le Courir - Explorations of community and culture in a world turned upside down, National Park Service Jean Lafitte Prairie Acadian Cultural Center, Eunice, LA

  • 2013  Solo Exhibition, Maiden Alley Cinema Gallery, Paducah, KY

  • 2013  Masks and Mayhem II, Steeple Vue Gallery, NUNU's Arts and Culture Collective, Arnaudville, LA

  • 2012  Masks and Mayhem - The Courir de Mardi Gras art of Herb Roe, St. Landry Parish Visitor Information Center, Opelousas, LA

  • 2009  Solo Exhibition, A. I. R. Studio, Paducah, KY
     

Group

  • 2022 Equinox by Renegade Artists Collective, Studio Waveland + Gallery, Waveland, MS

  • 2022 10th Annual ARTFIELDS, Lake City, SC

  • 2020 Eye of the Beholder, Lafayette Art Association, Lafayette, LA, 2 D Art Award of Merit, Best in Show Award

  • 2020  Southern Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA (curated by René Morales, chief curator, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL)

  • 2020  Renegade Artists Collective Inaugural Show, The Building, New Orleans, LA

  • 2018  FEAST, Barristers Gallery, New Orleans, LA (curated by Jillian Gibson)

  • 2018  Mythologies Louisianaises, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA (curated by Jonathan Mayers)

  • 2018  Capitol City Contemporary 4 : Food, Glorious Food, Louisiana Art & Science Museum, Baton Rouge, LA (curated by Rodneyna Hart)

  • 2018  Group Show of LA Artists, The Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, LA (curated by Carolyn Goodman)

  • 2017  Southern Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA (curated by Shantrelle P. Lewis)

  • 2017  Art Melt 2017, Capital Park Museum, Baton Rouge, LA (curated by Courtney Taylor, LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA, Mark A. Tullos, Jr., Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience, Meridian, MS, and Jennifer Scanlan, Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City, OK)

  • 2017  Southern Futurism, The Healthcare Gallery & Wellness Spa, Baton Rouge, LA, (curated by Rodneyna Hart)

  • 2015  46th annual River Road Show, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, LA, (curated by Diantha York-Ripley)

  • 2015  C'est Une Valse, Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette, LA (curated by Mary Beyt and Brian Guidry)

  • 2015  19th Annual No Dead Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA (curated by Max Fishko, director, Art Market Productions, New York, NY, Valerie Cassell Oliver, senior curator, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX and David Workman, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA)

  • 2015  Group Exhibition, Ariodante Contemporary, New Orleans, LA

  • 2015  5th Annual Brush with Burden Exhibition, LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden, Baton Rouge, LA (curated by Phil Sandusky)

  • 2015  The Big Easel Art Fair Preview Show, Lounge Gallery, Lafayette, LA, Best Oil Painting award (curated by Jeffery McCullough)

  • 2014  45th annual River Road Show, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, LA, (curated by Morten E. Solberg)

  • 2014  Where You Stay At? P3+ exhibit, Ten Gallery + Collective, New Orleans, LA (curated by Jonathan Mayers)

  • 2014  Art Melt 2014, Capital Park Museum, Baton Rouge, LA ( curated by Katie Pfohl, LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA, Ben Thompson, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL, and Eric Robert Dallimore, Leon Gallery, Denver, CO)

  • 2014  The Summer Show, 49th National Juried Artists Exhibition, St. Tammany Art Association, Covington, LA, (curated by Beth Batton, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS)

  • 2014  Covering Country Roads, East Baton Rouge Public Library, Baton Rouge, LA, (curated by James Fox-Smith, publisher Country Roads Magazine, Baton Rouge, LA)

  • 2014  LaGrange National XXVIII Exhibition, LaGrange Art Museum, LaGrange, GA (curated by Annette Cone-Skelton, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia)

  • 2013  Art with a Bayou View, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, LA, Best in Show award (curated by Dr. Edwin Pinkston)

  • 2013  Art Melt 2013, Capital Park Museum, Baton Rouge, LA, Honorable mention from juror Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker (curated by Jordana Pomeroy, LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA, Susan Edwards, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, and Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA)

  • 2013  Rock the Flock, Gallery 549, Lafayette, LA (curated by Donald LeBlanc)

  • 2012  Ex Arte Equinas VI, Art Horse Magazine. Honorable mention painting category (curated by Patricia Powers)

  • 2012  43rd annual River Road Show, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, LA, Honorable mention (curated by Sam Corso)

  • 2012  Masquerade, ARC Gallery, San Francisco, CA, (curated by Jack Fischer, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, Ca)

  • 2008  Southern Open, Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette, LA, (curated by Peter Frank, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA)

  • 2002  Two-Person Exhibition, Cite des Artes, Lafayette, LA (with painter Wayne Ditch)
     

Collections

Public collections

  • Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation Art Collection at the George & Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center 1225 N. Rampart Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.
     

Private collections

  • Works held in private collections throughout the United States.

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