American Beauty, South is essentially a street art project inspired by one historic north-south route that runs from the border of Canada to its terminus in New Orleans: Highway 61. This project aims to utilize the streetside walls of motels alongside Airline Drive within city limits to showcase artist-produced billboards. It began as a personal project with one motel and was then expanded to include eight artists exhibiting at eight different motels. The artworks vary in size and format (4' x 8' to 8' x 16'), depending on the location. All sites are highly visible at street level and from the roadway.

New Orleans, and the entire south of course, are possessed of a unique beauty in nature as well as its inhabitants' collective heritage. Using the exhibition's title as a curatorial directive, artists' works will respond to the show's main themes: American beauty, the South and Highway 61. Initially I was interested in what forms this expression would take visually and how artists would deal with enhancing motel signage and its relationship to the public streetscape and neighboring communities. The cumulative result has been surprising and viewers will definitely find that a common thread has imbedded itself along Highway 61.

Jack Niven
Curator 

 
ARTWORK:
 
Universal Mule
Jack Niven

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Storytelling #3 (Rewrite)
Megan Roniger

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Spill
Sarah Kabot

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Yellowstone
Stan Denniston

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Lacuna
Marianne Desmarais

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Cloud Car
Richard McCabe

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Stardust
Robert Tannen

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