NEW ORLEANS, LA.- Jonathan Ferrara Gallery announced that The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is presenting I Was Trying Hard to Think About Sweet Things -a mid-career survey of New Orleans artist Gina Phillips.

Born in 1971 in Madison, Kentucky, Gina Phillips is a painter, sculptor, fabric artist, educator and musician. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from University of Kentucky in 1994, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University in 1997. Phillips' work has been exhibited across the US and in Europe including Prospect.2 Biennial, Ballroom Marfa, Mobile Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, The University of Kentucky and the Acadiana Center For the Arts. Her work is included in the private and public collections worldwide, including the University of Kentucky, Lexington; New Orleans Museum of Art; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; The House of Blues Collection; NASA; and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, 21c Museum, Louisville; Marilyn Oshman, Houston, TX and The Drake Hotel, Toronto, Canada.

Hailing from rural Kentucky, Phillips' childhood was spent surrounded by a musical and artistic family known for their mechanical and creative abilities. Her grandmother was a self-taught artist and Phillips learned early on that almost anything can be re-used to create something functional or artistic. This exhibition will include works from throughout her career-from her Kentucky early years with raw narrative works made from paint, wood, metal and fabric, to her most recent narrative paintings and sophisticated fabric work created on her "free-motion thread-drawing machine" in her studio in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

The exhibition runs through January 5, 2014.