Art in New Orleans

Outer Journey: Denis Lebecq

Royal Street has numerous art galleries. Sculptures and paintings full of vibrant colors line the windows. One style of painting caught my eye at the Galerie Rue Royale. The artist is Denis Lebecq, who lives in Pont-Aven, France. The dark, yet bright red of many of the pieces hanging on the wall drew me over. I wasn't sure if these paintings were meant to show something tragic because there would be an identical painting with a pale gray or yellow background. His style is unique in the way he spreads a mix of oil, acrylic and asphalt on the canvas with a palette knife. One of the tags quoted him "The deep reds are like blood. The bright yellows are not bright, they are sunny. The light grays are are voluptuous. The sum of its parts creates a total presence that is at once both gentle and violent; a poetic energy that gives meaning and freedom to the imagination." The bright background had my attention but this is not something I would hang in my house. I would stick to one of his neutral paintings.

Inner Journey

The pictures are so simple in that each one shows boats and fisherman at low tide. To me the background may represent the outcome of the fishing trip, calm or dangerous waters, successful or empty fishing nets. He uses very few colors but each one makes an impact to the whole piece. There is just enough detail to show a story, even though he only uses one utensil with several layers of color to give depth and character to each work of art. The ripple effect he shows in the water allows my imagination to be on the dock or beach near these boats, watching the fisherman anchoring them down until the next trip out to sea. I love being by the ocean, even though I have some weird subconscious fear of sand. Denis grew up near the coast so these may be images he saw on a daily basis and may have brought him joy as a child, or he may have been a fisherman and this was his daily routine.