Exile: Recent Work by Margaret Evangeline
Margaret Evangeline says her new mixed-media pieces are all about "emptiness," but that doesn't mean there's any shortage of concepts. "Emptiness" itself is a loaded word, after all, especially where bullets are concerned. For instance, eXile, a five-minute video, features Evangeline tromping across bullet casings on a reflective surface in her stiletto-heeled and conveniently bulletproof Stella McCartney boots. The reflective surfaces suggest water, and some digital images based on the video are titled Wade in the Water, after the famous spiritual. But others feature polished steel surfaces highlighting "the intensified space where the stainless steel has succumbed to the bullet shock." For Evangeline, a New York-based, formerly local artist, it all somehow has to do with New Orleans: "It was a homesick restlessness that led me to a visual language made by my feet," she says, in what might be a whole new twist on Fats Domino. -- D. Eric Bookhardt Through April
Heriard-Cimino Gallery, 440 Julia St., 525-7300; www.heriardcimino.com
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