‘Adventuring with the image’ defines Aaron Collier’s art

Artist, alumnus and assistant professor Aaron Collier works to develop images that engage viewers in his colorful paintings. The Tulane University community will have a chance to view Collier’s works when the Carroll Gallery opens a solo exhibit of his paintings on Jan. 12.

Entitled “Something There,” the exhibit runs through Feb. 5. To celebrate the opening, a reception is planned for Jan. 14 from 5:30 until 7:30 p.m., with a walk through with the artist at 6 p.m.

“Something There,” a solo exhibit of Aaron Collier's work, opens Jan. 12 in the Carroll Gallery.

Paint has the powerful ability to both reveal and conceal, and is “an in-between act, a simultaneous doing and undoing,” says Collier, who received an MFA from Tulane in 2005.

“Paintings in ‘Something There’ traffic in contours that feel along the edge of a form rather than supply documentation of the form in its entirety,” he says. “Images that indefinitely ‘suggest’ allow me to situate the viewer and myself as deferential participants, adventuring with the image.”

Collier has had other solo exhibitions at Cole Pratt Gallery and Staple Goods, an artist cooperative that he founded in the St. Claude Avenue Arts District. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

He also completed several artist residencies including one at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans.

The Carroll Gallery is open 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday–Friday, in the Woldenberg Art Center.