The more you NOLA: Wild at art

Antieau Gallery features imaginative works composed in fabric appliqué. Albino (above) is a framed piece from Chris Roberts-Antieau"s “Phantom Limb” collection.

Composed from countless brushstrokes, stitches and hours of sculpting, the ethereal and eccentric works housed in New Orleans" art galleries invite visitors to take in local artists" visions. Wander in these shops, and see for yourself.

Antieau Gallery

The ethereal and eccentric works housed in New Orleans' art galleries welcome visitors to take in local artists' visions.

Chris Roberts-Antieau is a storyteller sharing tales via textile. Most works featured in Antieau"s galleries are made with fabric appliqué (a cloth layering technique) and “thread-painting” (free-motion machine embroidery that allows stitches to build dimension). This detailing provides a folk-art quality to the artist"s work. Her “Phantom Limb” series resembles pages ripped from fairy-tale books, as forest-dwelling wildlife interacts with sewn subjects. Antieau also displays found-object sculptures created from taxidermy and thrift-store treasures. Her “Tragic Snowglobes” tug at the viewer"s sense of dark humor, as the figures encased inside the pieces encourage gallery guests to lighten up.

Gallery Burguieres

Founded by painter Ally Burguieres, this Royal Street art emporium is inhabited by vividly hued global wildlife. The designer welcomes visitors to a whimsical world created from mixed media, as swirling sea life and playfully crowned animals peek from the gallery walls in a kaleidoscope of color. Burguieres offers paintings, prints and her own Wish Dog products made of oven-baked clay. Write a wish on paper, roll it up, insert it in the top of a kitten, ring-tailed lemur or other animal figurine, and watch it billow smoke when you ignite it. Voilà ! Wish granted.

La Madama Bazarre Fine Art

A bubblegum pink corridor of curiosities, La Madama Bazarre is located inside an early 19th-century Royal Street building. The gallery brims with captivating multimedia pieces that exhibit strange beauty. In local painter Kevin Thayer"s “Ooh La La Girls” series, doe-eyed beauties dreamily stare out from their canvases, while Jane Talton"s oil portraits depict smug-looking piglets and terriers as refined anthropomorphic nobility. The shop also features a number of Lateefah Wright"s eerie and ornate stoneware sculptures, which secretly function as music boxes.