Fabiola Jean Louis: Rewriting History
On display at La Maison Française until May 30, 2022
By appointment only: please email Kourtney Rutherford kkr2011@nyu.edu
Rewriting History is an inquiry into social change. How much has society really changed since the beginning of slavery? Do Black lives matter in the 21st century? The series interrogates these questions and more through a haunting photographic essay styled to mimic garments worn by female European nobility between the 15th – 19th centuries. As part of a developing master series of paper gown sculptures, the body of work speaks to the shocking treatment of Blacks throughout history and the trauma inflicted on their bodies as juxtaposed with the abstract idea of Black freedom. Simultaneously, the artist engages with a vision of the future – one of hope, strength, resilience, and beauty.
FABIOLA JEAN-LOUIS
Fabiola Jean-Louis is a Haitian born, New York and Brooklyn raised mixed media artist. As a teenager, she studied fashion design and illustration at the High School of Fashion Industries, and attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. During her formal education Fabiola became disenchanted with the fashion industry, and left the field entirely. It would take 14 years before she discovered her talent in photography.
Through her work, Jean-Louis explores the events of the past, present, and the possibilities of the future that involve her community. A mother of five children, she is self-taught. She has been working at her craft for only six years, and is already making waves as an emerging fine artist who can manifest diverse patterns of space-time, sci-fi, costume design, and surrealism within the worlds of her art.
