Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery: Robert Trudeau

For information on how to purchase a work of art, please contact the artist through the "e-mail" link, or contact the gallery at info@nwlaartgallery.com.

"Duchess of Petrolia" Pen and Ink on Paper

"Duke of DuBonnet" Pen and Ink on Paper

"Newcastle"

1:39 1.51MB mp3

"Newcastle," was recorded at dawn in the South Virginia woods near Craig Creek. In Louisiana I added a melody via Boss DR-5 synthesizer.

"Duke of Delphinium" Pen and Ink on Paper

"Duke of Ducatoon" Pan and Ink on Paper

"Midnight"

3:16 4.50MB mp3

"Midnight" was tracked with a sunburst Gibson B-25 made in the 1960's and a new Fender P-bass Special. You can find pictures of the guitars on the BR-8 Page (http://br8page.editthispage.com/) Recorded on a small Boss BR-8 digital unit, the guitar - via a Lawrence humbucker in the soundhole - was routed through a Behringer MDX 2200 compressor.

What does the term midnight imply to you? I've been fortunate enough to remember the flowing, creative midnights and have dropped, somehow, consciousness of my teeth-grinding, anarchic & anxious midnights.

"Chinese Street Jazz"

3:39 3.43MB mp3

"Chinese Street Jazz" was built around a drum track recorded for me by former Picket Line Coyote David M. Green. I added the plaintive voice of a Chinese folk singer crooning a "sitting song." Then came sitar from one of my favorite artists, Anoushka Shankar. I met her in 2000 when she and her famous father gave a concert at the Strand Theater. Chick Corea's part came from his solo improvisations. The bass loops emanated from the new Apple recording program called GarageBand. The composition was assembled in GarageBand.

"Bulgarians on the Black Sea"

1:43 1.96MB mp3

"Bulgarians on the Black Sea" Twenty-one song-singing women from Bulgaria producing the inimitable Balkan female choir sound: this is from "Stoeneh" on the album Cosmic Voices of Bulgaria. Mixed in GarageBand with drum loops designed to promote dancing. At 1:37 it fits choreographers' needs. Inspired by Dorothinia's production of Goddess Dance at Harmony Healing Center. Produced partly because I'd like more people to be able to sample Bulgaria's voices.

"Graphoon"

1:53 1.72MB mp3

Imagine Charlie Chaplin trying to impress a pretty girl. Nearby is a
large, bearded fellow with no sense of humor. The ogre thinks, he, too,
has a chance to impress the sweet thing. The gents indulge in spirited
upmanship, insults and pushing. Punches are thrown and parried; kicks are aimed. Chaplin ducks, the hirsute fool pursues. The girl,
meanwhile, seems oblivious to their struggle. "Graphoon" was mixed with GarageBand on a G4 Mac using GB loops and sounds grabbed from iTunes.

"Augusta"

2:50 2.60MB mp3

"Augusta" is yin and yang. Composed on an Apple G4 with an Oxygen 8 midi keyboard and Garageband software, it reflectsthe eddies in my transactional transmission.

Past article by Robert Trudeau which were featured on our Critical Thinking page:

Getting Out of Town 11/04

SSO Dances with Cho 09/04

The Times: Hellzapoppin 08/04

If Only the War Mongers Would Sit Down and Absorb the Message Of "Camelot." 07/04

Suspended Rubberized Micro Tubes: A Visit to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston 07/04

Embarrassed About Our Role In Iraq? 06/04

Swaying in the Wind: “Skyscraper” 05/04

The Town with No Critic: Interview with former Times editor Ronnie Ramos 04/04 mp3

RW Norton Art Foundation: New wing, new exhibit, new web site 04/04

Prieto a Hopper Shreveport Symphony Orchestra 04/04

Bistineau Gallery 04/04

Interview with artist Melissa Bonin by Robert Trudeau mp3

All Roads Lead to Lafayette This Month 04/04

Artist’s Statement / Robert Trudeau

Like a buccaneer on a swift sloop eyeing a lumbering merchant ketch, I can’t stop larcenously eyeing my neighborhood’s low-hanging apples. Golden musical chests and silvery panoramas appear to me every time the spy glass stops.

Thus my incessant inking sheets of paper and banging on the box. I look, I translate, I recapture ambient treasure. To me these images and tunes are heavy coin of the realm.

People pausing, the Pope pontificating, impoverished popinjays pirouetting, I must have them all.

Media:

pen and ink, psychedelic folk music, prose chronicles,
videography.

The Quirks of Creation: drawings by Robert Trudeau

I sketch to survive the lurches of my neuroses and to examine my place in the transitory parade of humanity.

Sketches from my pen are usually satirical. I enjoy tweaking conventional senses of gender, race and status. It's often hard to tell whether one of my chuchos is male or female - delicate, rounded face with a hint of a mustache and beard, for instance. Or whether they are negroid or caucasian - I am haunted by the physical beauty of Louisiana's Creole people. Or whether they are from the Renaissance era or simply dolled up in a costume. Whether they're bourgeois or Bowery may not be clear.

Dislocation of these elements - gender, class, race - leads us to look at each other as needy, fallible and equal beings.

"Crosshatching rules" is my battle cry. My challenge is to engage the viewer while offering the least glamorous medium: pen and plain paper. I want to offer telling detail in the smallest elements of a drawing: the stitching in my sketches represents a mode of dialogue with the viewer. Fabric textures, collars, jewelry, hats: these are parts of the character's story. Much of my thought lies in the eyes of a portrait; they project my take on the subject's emotional life and message. I compulsively examine the quirks of creation: beard pattern, the shapes of lips and the set of a mouth.

My characters embody, I hope, features and emotions that are both grotesque and appealing.

RT
January 17, 2005