"She Glows" is a collection of nudes and still life paintings by New Orleans artist Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux. Griffin Thibodeaux has been a painter of the human figure for thirty years. This collection represents a bursting forth of her best pieces rendered in a single session (or "alla prima") to express the essence of the visual experience of the nude in light. It represents a culmination of her painting and drawing efforts in a set of pieces that express the sublime of painting, of observation of light, of the beauty of the human form, of painting itself. For Griffin Thibodeaux, painting is a practice done from observation. It is the distillation of a moment in time in an economy of strokes to express the gesture, light, and overall feeling of the scene. Often there is an emotion in the gesture itself. Sometimes it is plaintive, or spent, or weary. Sometimes exhuberant. Sometimes glowing. In many of these pieces, it is the glow that resonates, that stays with the viewer, long after the eye passes by. The painting is not about a particular setting--sofa or chair or building, but rather about the assembled pieces--be it a figure and a setting or a still life--arranged in a flow from here to there. In some cases it is left to right, or top to bottom, or right to left. It is a buildup of a dramatic moment to a crescendo of emphasis, and then a denouement where the eye leaves the painting. It is this effort that keeps Griffin Thibodeaux going, day after day, seeing each scene as a possibility of that sublime moment of poetry available to us all, should we stop and linger and feel. To this end, Griffin Thibodeaux has in some cases simplified the background into a dark field, or in many cases, painted the foreground objects and figures against a ground toned with a swirly circular motion. This flat background in a single color has become a signature expression of the simplicity of alla prima--paint only what is needed and then stop. For those who practice this craft of painting, one often pushes the background in to render the figure--a process called "carving in"--to render the background and then restate the foreground to create the effect of form receding in space. In flattening the background, Griffin Thibodeaux leaves the foreground figures painted simply with strength and clarity and then stops. Not an easy feat. Her confident strokes make it look quick and easy. She notes that the process of creating form with paint is "simple but not easy" and has taken her a lifetime to achieve. Griffin Thibodeaux is hugely influenced by the work of John Singer Sargent, whose grace as a painter is without measure. Marks laid just so expressing a complicated assembly of planes, values, and edges expressed in his works are a pinnacle of technique and expressed feeling. More recently she is indebted to the painter Richard Schmid, whose excellence in drawing while painting is equally sublime, and his instructional volume "Alla Prima," considered by many to be the bible of representational painting, remained at her bedside for at least a decade. Many contemporary painters carry on this tradition, though they are spotted here and there across the contemporary landscape. Griffin Thibodeaux is equally indebted to New Orleans artist Auseklis Ozols as one of her earliest teachers and a lifelong mentor, whose classical realist academy was unmatched in its excellence year after year for forty years. In addition to her personal works, Griffin Thibodeaux paints commissioned portraits for families through her business YourBestDay.Art. As of 2024 she added live events to her repetoire of services--to provide the bride and groom with a live painting of their best day, as well as watercolors and head and shoulders portraits of their moment of great love. She also paints family memory paintings from snapshots of gatherings or everyday moments--from a father and son fishing in a stream to middle school baseball players swinging for the fences up at bat. She teaches in New Orleans at her school North Light Fine Art, which offers in person instruction, fun art outings, and travel workshops (Alscace, France, anyone? Coastal Maine?) She lives in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans with her husband and twin sons, who love baseball, Star Wars, and mythology. Griffin Thibodeaux is constantly amazed by life and its riches that continue to unfold in spite of everything in the news. On any given day you may find her meditating, jogging slowly, or air drumming in the car to her favorite musical. "She Glows" is her first solo show since becoming a mother.

Paintings to remember those we have lost