“Gurlfriendology,” the best-named art exhibition in the world, opens Wednesday, March 1st, not coincidentally on the first day of Women’s Month at the gorgeous Southern University Museum of Art at Shreveport. Yes, “Gurlfriendology.” As in, “GURL-Friend!” The timid “i” is rightly replaced by the strong “u” and drawn out. That simple vowel switch makes what Karen La Beau calls “the warrior cry,” used when you need your girlfriends immediately, the ones who will drop everything and come running when they hear it, opening up a bottle of wine as they sprint through your door, pouring it rapidly into the glasses you’re holding out in trembling hands, and already listening to what has JUST HAPPENED to you, an experience so intense, so unsettling that you have to get it out NOW.
Yes, those Gurlfriends.
“Gurlfriendology”, Karen says, “is about women being empowered, showing our strength and our weakness,” the joyous, sad and poignant moments. Above all, “Gurlfriendology” is about the deep, often life-long friendships between women and girls, the ones that keep us rejuvenated, lifted and woke.
Karen began painting women and girls in friendship scenes as part of her “My Life on Canvas” series, which she started in 2007 to cope with all that she missed in New Orleans. She and her family had to leave their home and life there when Hurricane Katrina hit. “The main thing I missed were my girlfriends from home and those strong bonds, when I hadn’t made new girlfriends in Shreveport,” Karen told me. “So, I would paint scenes of women going to brunch, with hats on, which represented what my girlfriends and I did.”
As she told me that, we were looking at a painting of five women sitting around a table, dressed in elegant attire and hats, looking out at us. As is customary of Karen’s depictions, the women’s faces are featureless. They are attending ARTini 2016, an annual event hosted by the Bossier Arts Council, which requires “upscale cocktail” attire. All five women are Karen’s close girlfriends. The woman at the center of the table draws your attention because she is the only one wearing red. Karen told me the woman in red in the center was her good friend and colleague, Katherine, who died suddenly last November. She wanted to honor Katherine by commemorating their time at ARTini 2016 as one of the last times they shared with Katherine.
The collection has both paintings of numerous people and scenes from Karen’s life, ones many viewers will recognize, and those they won’t necessarily know, yet will still seem familiar. The lack of people’s facial features allow us to both recognize them and easily put people we know or ourselves in their places. The scenes the people are in elicit the same response. In one painting, two women are hanging out on a deck over a peaceful lake while a sailboat sails by. You can see just the feet of a third woman. Even if you haven’t hung out with your girlfriends at that very place, you probably have experienced a similar, peaceful setting and have done what those women are doing — talking, chilling and just being.
As with the ARTini piece, another painting from Karen’s life stirs similar memories of your own life. It is of Karen as a little girl sitting with her grandmother at a kitchen table, which Karen painted from a photograph. That moment in her life is a universal one, a child and a grandparent or another relative, being together. In the framework of women’s friendships, it is the special connection between a grandmother and granddaughter many girls have had. Even the personal details of the painting trigger our own memories, especially those of us who grew up in the same time period. A 1973 wall calendar is in the background, and a jar of Sanka and a copy of the Times-Picayune newspaper lie on the table. (In my childhood, there were cans of Maxwell House and The Washington Post in the kitchen.) Karen’s painting of her with her grandmother is special too because her grandmother died a year after the photo was taken.
The vivid colors Karen uses in her paintings also draw you in and keep you there. In the painting she has used to promote “Gurlfriendology” on the exhibition’s Facebook page, you see three women in pink, red and blue hats with matching elegant dresses taking a selfie. But you only see the women’s heads and from the back; your focus is on the hats which take up most of the canvas. You only then notice right after that they’re taking a selfie. Their faces are in a small smartphone frame, and what their faces look like is less important than their colorful hats and the fun they are having. When I saw it, I had the urge to find my best hat and dress and call up my girlfriends to do the same thing.
And then there’s the painting, a photo of which is in this article, of women and girls braiding and styling each other’s hair, one of the most intimate connections among us because we do that with women and girls who are often family or close friends we trust absolutely. This is an act of women and girls taking care of one other, supporting and praising one another’s beauty while sharing stories and yes, gossip (which is another word for “information.”)
Karen also has ventured into the political realm. She has a piece inspired by the Women’s March in January, and she had Tshirts made for the exhibition, with drawings of three women in white on black background. At the top it says, “Gurlfriendology: Women Empowering Each Other.” Yes, please! (You can purchase them at the exhibition.)
Oh, and then there are the crawfish, but you’re just going to have to see those splendid beings for yourself.
What I personally liked the most about “Gurlfriendology” was the relationships between the women and girls were all positive –no mean girls anywhere. It is a celebration of women’s deep friendships that make them – that make us, that make me – strong, resilient, joyous and whole. And so, I will now make the warrior cry: GURLfriends! We’re meeting at Karen’s exhibit, stat!
Artist Karen La Beau’s Gurlfriendology: A Celebration of Women exhibition opening and opening reception is scheduled for Wednesday, March 1st at the Southern University Museum of Art At Shreveport located at 610 Texas St. Suite 110, Shreveport, La. 71108. The exhibition will be there until March 31, 2017.
For more information, visit the Facebook Event.