Lafayette, LA – UL Lafayette School of Music and Performing Arts and
Thomas Deaton Selected as Prospect.6 Participating Artist
Fri, 08/09/2024 - 10:37am
On January 25, 2024, Prospect New Orleans announced that New Orleans-based contemporary artist and visual arts alum Thomas Deaton was selected as one of the 49 international artists participating in the 2024 iteration of the triennial, Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, which will open to the public in New Orleans on Saturday, November 2, 2024, and remain on view through Sunday, February 2, 2025. New work by Thomas Deaton will be on view at the Contemporary Arts Center throughout the triennial.
Thomas Deaton (@thomasdeaton) is a Louisiana native born in Lafayette where he earned a BFA studying printmaking at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Subsequently, he attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA receiving his MA and MFA focusing on printmaking and drawing. He was the first student ever at the University of Iowa to utilize hot stamped foil, a commercial printing process which was developed for artistic application in Iowa City, in all of his thesis work. After completing school and without continuous access to a printing studio, Thomas turned to painting. His paintings display a generous mix of both painterly and graphic qualities, existing in a kind of limbo between traditional works on paper and works on canvas. He currently lives and works in New Orleans.
Black Domina, 40 x 40 in., acrylic/mixed media on canvas, 2023
Stump, 40 x 40 in., acrylic/mixed media on canvas, 2023
Historically, New Orleans has been regarded as a city deeply rooted in its past. For Prospect.6, Co-Artistic Directors Miranda Lash and Ebony G. Patterson will posit New Orleans as a globally relevant point of departure for examining our collective future as it relates to climate change, legacies of colonialism, and definitions of belonging and home.
Curated by The Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Directors Miranda Lash and Ebony G. Patterson
“Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home presents a challenge to our perceptions of 'home' — it asks us to consider that what we hold dear about the places where we live may, in fact, share commonalities with places we've never considered. This triennial is about decentering our understanding and viewing New Orleans through a lens that transcends North American narratives and anchors the city in a global discourse,” said Ebony G. Patterson. “New Orleans is a global place and reflects the fact that most of the world is occupied by people of colour. What does it mean to think about places like New Orleans, as currently living in the future, rather than a future to come? And that places outside of this are actually behind.”
“We are grateful to the artists of Prospect.6 for being part of a layered conversation around the environment, our human search for connection and vibrance, and the ways that New Orleans relates to their communities, histories, and visions for the future,” added Miranda Lash. “This triennial offers a critique and discussion of how people, communities, and regions like Louisiana have been and continue to be regarded as sites of extraction for resources and labor. At the same time, New Orleans offers profound insight into how culture, neighborhoods, and deep histories tether us to people and places, even in the face of mounting challenges. We see this tension between attachments to home—however one defines it—and the shifting climate as one of the defining issues of our foreseeable future.”
