Sandra Pani: De Ser Árbol

Made possible by the support of the Mexican Consulate from New Orleans, Sandra Pani: De Ser Árbol creatively expresses the process of dissolution, reintegration, and the birth of new life.

To create her works, the artists lies on paper in order to leave an imprint. The contact, she explains, reflects “the experience of inhabiting a body.” Over the course of the series, the image of the body transforms into a tree thus inspiring the title of the show. One critic has observed that Pani´s works can be said to be figurative with certain poetical abstract accents and are rooted in 20th-century painters such as Picasso, Morandi, Matisse and Giacometti, and in some modernist North American artists.

Accompanying the exhibition is Las Delicias: The Drawings of William Spratling, Artist and Entrepreneur, a selection of silver design sketches curated by Newcomb College alumna and jewelry designer Mignon Faget. The show features works from the Latin American Library at Tulane University and underscores the entrepreneurial legacy of Spratling and the generations of artisans involved in the Taxco silver industry. Also included in the exhibition is Treasures of Darkness: Spanish Colonial Silver from the Middle American Research Institute, which presents a selection of mixed-media objects, both sacred and profane.