Jonathan Ferrara Gallery announces a limited unique edition print by artist Brian Borrello that will benefit the expansion of resources and mental health support for children and families affected by the oil spill.
Brian Borrello is a Portland-based artist who was born and raised in New Orleans. Borrello is well-known for his environmental works and public art projects.
Brian Borrello, New Orleans Skyline, digital print, BP Deepwater Horizon oil, 12 ¾” x 36″ (unframed), 2003/ 2010. $290 (unframed). Edition of 100
“New Orleans Skyline” is a high-resolution digital print on archival paper with oil collected from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill. Borrello has been integrating motor oil and other materials of a deadly beauty in his artwork since 1993. He is an artist/facilitator with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA, as part of their Brownfields Initiative Program, conducting vision-planning sessions with brownfield communities nationwide since 2004.
www.jonathanferraragallery.com
This limited unique edition print will be sold directly from the gallery (online and in gallery) with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the St. Bernard Project in collaboration with LSU Health Sciences Center Department of Psychiatry to provide services for families impacted by the oil spill. The mental health services at the St. Bernard Project are overseen by Dr. Howard Osofsky, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at LSUHSC.
Dr. Osofsky says of the immense mental health needs on the Gulf Coast: “The mental health needs of this community will continue to be paramount and go on into the future. It’s like the tip of the iceberg.
For the fishing families and oil workers, this long journey has just started. We will be dealing with the effects and ramifications of this disaster for many years to come and help is needed now and into the future.”
Of the New Orleans Skyline piece, Borrello says: “In my graphic work, I offer meditations on the delicate interrelationship that humans and other life forms share on this planet. Often these images are rendered in carbon-based materials, like charcoal, India ink, or oil, to reflect the carboniferous origins of life on earth. Like diagrams for life processes, the botanical drawings and paintings are expressed in the forming and becoming of plant forms, yet also are in fragmentation or decay. The landscape pieces are impressions of ecosystems, marked by the influence of human industry and activity and also document the temporal nature of life on earth.
I began drawing the skylines of various US cities in 2003, often adding the ‘appropriate’ toxic components to the image (depending on the city) Because of its reliance on the petrochemical industry, the image of New Orleans, and in fact, most of the renderings of the cities of the Gulf Coast region, received an application of motor oil to their compositions. The original ‘New Orleans Skyline’ painting seemed oddly prophetic when in 2005 my hometown lay saturated for a month under the toxic waters of the ‘Great Federal Flood’ caused by Hurricane Katrina. The poignancy of this work became renewed in the summer of 2010, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded in the Gulf and poisoned this bioregion on an unprecedented scale.
This unique edition of high-resolution digital prints on archival paper to which I have applied some of BP’s spilled oil that I collected from the beaches of Florida and the marshes of Louisiana. In this art I attempt alchemy, taking the negative and turning it into a positive. I am proud to donate 20% of the proceeds of the sale of this edition to help coastal residents whose lives and well-beings have been affected by this disaster.”
Brian Borrello has a BFA from University of New Orleans and an MFA from Arizona State University. He is an artist, activist, public artist, curator and environmentalist. His artwork has been exhibited across the US in galleries and museum exhibitions. His work is in numerous public and private collections including the Portland Art Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, the City of Portland, the Oregon Zoo, the Audubon Zoological Institute and the Four Season Hotel in Washington, D.C. His public art projects can be seen across the State of Oregon, and in Louisiana, California and Colorado. Borrello is represented by Pulliam Gallery in Portland, OR and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, LA.
www.jonathanferraragallery.com
