NEW ORLEANS, LA.- It was not until artist Regina Scully had the opportunity to closely explore the New Orleans Museum of Art’s collection of Japanese paintings that she realized the parallels between the art she was creating, and Chinese and Japanese antecedents. In Regina Scully | Japanese Landscape: Inner Journeys, on view April 7 – October 8, 2017, paintings from throughout Scully’s career are presented with a selection of Japanese works from NOMA’s renowned permanent collection, highlighting the apparent, yet unintentional, stylistic coincidences between the American artist and 18th and 19th century Asian art.

“Regina isn’t making Japanese art, but some of the techniques of building a composition were akin. She uses shifting perspectives to suggest space, for example, a method also employed by Japanese artists,” said Lisa Rotondo-McCord, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Asian Art. “I thought there might be a chance for an interesting dialogue if we looked at NOMA’s collection together, with an eye to creating an exhibition.”

Inner Journeys features works that span Scully’s career, from early oil-sketches, to selections from later series which explore geographic and psychological space and grapple with new forms of space, to new works created during the period of Scully’s more active engagement with Japanese painting. Paired with art from Japan’s dynamic Edo Period, the works provoke close scrutiny, invite conversation, and reveal the complex intersections of the present and the past, space and perspective, and the abstract and the representational.

“Regina’s works have allowed us to showcase some of the treasures in our permanent collection, while highlighting a prominent, evocative New Orleans artist,” said Susan Taylor, Montine Daniel Freeman Director at NOMA. “It is our hope that this unique juxtaposition will inspire conversation and visitors to take a closer look.”