NEW ORLEANS, LA.- In one of the most noteworthy exhibitions to open in New Orleans’ Arts District this year, the Mac-Gryder Gallery presents Françoise Gilot’s “Monotypes: Cartography of Hidden Worlds.” Comprising ten rare monotype (or monoprint) works, plus drawings and oil paintings, the exhibition opened August 3, 2019. The exhibit will remain on view through September 28.

Gilot, who famously spent more than a decade in a romantic and creative partnership with Pablo Picasso that resulted in two children, came of age as an artist during the German occupation of Paris. While today she is cresting an eight-decade-long career in the modern art world, in 1985, she began the quest to express herself in a new medium.

During repeated sessions at Solo Press in New York, she created several series of monoprints, or monotypes: one-of-a-kind painted and collaged artworks that complement and echo her lifelong work in oil on canvas, yet stand alone for their elaborate technique, striking colors and textured surfaces.

“These pieces are richer and more luminous than watercolor paintings,” said gallery owner Jill McGaughey. “It is fascinating to see Gilot express herself in this new language. In addition to her recognizable visual vocabulary, she also incorporates elaborate layers and textures into the compositions. They shimmer and dance before our eyes and are almost otherworldly in their dimensional effects.”

Using lithographic inks, solvents and equipment, but painting directly onto plexiglass rather than stone or metal plates, Gilot was free to improvise, adding layers of translucent texture with pass after pass of inking and wiping clean the plate. Collaging different exotic textured papers onto the base sheet further enhanced her finished vision, resulting in unique paintings on paper with various symbolic themes that have an organic sense of movement to them.

Gilot’s work has been shown and collected in New Orleans since 1972. Her artworks have enjoyed museum exhibitions worldwide, and she remains active, painting every day as part of her lifelong discipline. Her memoir, “Life with Picasso,” documents her relationship with the famed artist, which began on the brink of World War II and ended when she left him in 1953, unwilling to sacrifice her own career to remain in his shadow. The memoir has just been re-printed by the New York Review of Books on the 55th anniversary of its original publication.