BONNIE MAYGARDEN
new paintings
May 29 – July 13, 2024
PULL QUOTE
Using illusion allows me to ask the viewer to slow down, to question and absorb what they see.
BIOGRAPHY
B O N N I E M A Y G A R D E N | | | biography
[lives & works - Los Angeles, CA ::: b.1987, New Orleans, LA]
BONNIE MAYGARDEN is a multimedia artist who received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tulane University. She attended Pratt Institute in New York, where she received her Bachelor's of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured in exhibitions both nationally and internationally in various museums, galleries and alternative venues including: Université Lumière Lyons (Lyons, France), Camden Art Center (London, England), Pratt Institute, Icosahedron Gallery (New York, NY), Callenwolde Fine Arts Center (Atlanta, GA), The Front (New Orleans, LA) and New Orleans Creative Center for the Arts.
Several notable publications have featured Maygarden’s work; including, Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles, Arts & Antiques Magazine, NOLA DEFENDER, and INVADE NOLA. Curator and art critic Tori Bush featured Maygarden’s Master’s thesis exhibition “Hyper Real” in her May 2013 Artist Spotlight. She also received an honorable mention for her work in UNO Visual Arts Leagues Juried Exhibition in 2013 from Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Museum and former Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Her work was reviewed in ArtForum and Burnaway for her inclusion in “Staring at the Sun” curated by Craig Drennan. Her paintings were also featured in New American Paintings (No. 112, June/July Issue) concurrently with her premier solo exhibition at Ferrara Showman Gallery entitled “Desert of the Real”, as well as Issue No. 124. Her work was selected twice for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s LA Contemporary Juried Exhibition, juried by Jonathan P. Binstock of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance (2014) and Courtney J Martin Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Dia Foundation (2018) who awarded her work second place in the exhibition. Maygarden has been exhibited nationally at art fairs including: Pulse New York, Miami Project for Art Basel Miami Beach, Texas Contemporary, Art Market San Francisco, the Seattle Art Fair, and VOLTA12 in Basel, Switzerland. In 2016, her work was featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin. Maygarden was also awarded a position at the Slade for the London Summer Intensive Residency Program 2016.
Maygarden’s work appears in the collections of former LACMA curator and current Perez Art Museum Director Franklin Sirmans (Miami), private collectors Lester Marks (Houston), Myrna Kaplan (Chicago) and Susan and Ralph Brennan (New Orleans), and corporate collections of Advantage Capital Management Corporation, RPM Casting and University Medical Center (New Orleans). Maygarden has been commissioned for Hollywood feature films by several production companies including: ABC Studios, Flashfire Productions, Danni Productions, Georgia Film Fund Seven, Abby Normal Pictures, Lamb Productions, Furlined, LLC and The Goats, LLC.
STATEMENT
My work is informed by and reacts to a culture defined by a digital experience, yet the work's imagery is created entirely by hand, using only paint. I seek out natural phenomena and illusions that feel familiar to an eye accustomed to imagery found on a screen. My work references recognized technology-created images, such as photography, x-rays, or Photoshop filters. Through referencing the digital image as well as our natural world, I am able to make paintings that walk the line between something and nothing; that both play to our expectations of the disposable contemporary image and the valued tradition of the handmade.
Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
2014 MFA: Studio Art- Painting
Newcomb Art Department. Tulane University. New Orleans, LA
2010 BFA: Studio Art- Painting (major), Art History (minor).
Pratt Institute New York, NY
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2019 Principle of the Hinge, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA
Selected Works, DTR Modern, Boston, MA
2018 Paradise, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
The Whole Drum Will Sound, Women in Southern Abstraction, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans
2017 PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, Miami, FL
FLUID, Stuben Gallery, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Really?, David Lusk Gallery, Nashville, TN
Callenwolde Juried Art Exhibition, Callenwolde Fine Arts Center, Atlanta, GA
Paper Managerie, 5 Press Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2016 London Summer Intensive Artist Residency Exhibition, Camden Art Center, London, England
Saturation, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Exchange, Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin, Germany
Annual Faculty Exhibition, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA
Annual Faculty Exhibition, New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, New Orleans, LA
2015 Welcome to My Homepage, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Twelfth Night, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, New Orleans, LA
Annual Faculty Exhibition, New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, New Orleans, LA
2014 Desert of the Real, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA
The Simulated Tide, Staple Goods, New Orleans, LA
Hyper Real, Carroll Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Louisiana Contemporary, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA
Bombay Sapphire Artesian Series National Juried Exhibition, Contemporary Art Center,
New Orleans, LA
Annual Faculty Exhibition, New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, New Orleans, LA
Staring at the Sun (exhibition curated by Craig Drennen), Saltworks Gallery. Atlanta, GA
2013 Virtuous Reality, The Front, New Orleans, LA
This Present Moment, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS / COMMISSIONED WORK
Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA
Franklin Sirmans, Los Angeles, CA
Lester Marks, Houston, TX
Susan and Ralph Brennan, New Orleans, LA
RPM Casting, New Orleans, LA
Advantage Capital Management Corporation, New Orleans, LA
Paintings commissioned by feature films including:
2014 “The Whole Truth” TWT NOLA, LLC
2013 “Devious Maids” ABC Studios
2012 “The Goats”. The Goats, LLC
“Broken City”. Georgia Film Fund Seven, LLC
“Father Like Son”. Abby Normal Pictures, LLC
“2 Guns”. Georgia Film Fund Fifteen Productions
“Lamb of God”. Lamb Productions Inc.
2011 “Parker”. Flashfire Productions, LLC
