We've Met Before...
new, recent, and important works by a cross-section of the gallery programme"First Saturdays" Opening Receptions - 1 August 5-9 PM - White Linen Night + 5 September 5-8 PM
July 15 – September 5, 2026
Biography
J O N A T H A N F E R R A R A
b. 1967 - Baltimore, Maryland ::: lives & works - New Orleans, Louisiana
@jonathan.ferrara.12
Jonathan Ferrara has maintained his own studio practice as artist for over 35 years ago. With an educational and professional background in finance and fundraising, he did not attend art school or pursue formal art training. Ferrara first started painting on t-shirts when he was a banker in Boston from 1989-1991. After moving to New Orleans in 1992 to pursue a career in fundraising at United Way (under former Mayor Ray Nagin‘s leadership), he began to experiment in painting on wood and canvas in his free time. Corporate fundraiser by day, aspiring artist by night - fading corporate aspirations made way for rising artistic inspirations. In 1995 he partnered with 3 other artists to open his first gallery, Positive Space, on Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District. From 1995-1998, Ferrara exhibited his own work at the gallery while learning the intricacies of the gallery business. In 1996 the gallery hosted the first iteration of the now well-known Guns In The Hands of Artists exhibition and that same year founded the annual international juried exhibition entitled “No Dead Artists” (currently open for the 30th annual call) for artists around the globe to get their first break into the contemporary art world).
In 1998, Ferrara opened his eponymous gallery in the Warehouse Arts District on Baronne Street and shortly thereafter expanded to a larger, 8000 sq ft, building on Carondelet Street which he completely renovated. Ferrara grew the gallery and its programming to be among the most exciting and dynamic art spaces in New Orleans. All the while, creating, and exhibiting his own work. He began to show elsewhere in group exhibitions across the South - from Nashville to Atlanta and beyond in New York, Miami, and Europe. In his gallery work, he developed a greater focus on curation, namely through travel, research, and subsequent exhibitions of contemporary Cuban art.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina brought new challenges and opportunities for the gallery and Ferrara’s work, giving birth to the international traveling exhibition New Orleans Artists in Exile exhibition to provide support and exhibitions to New Orleans artists as they rebuilt. In the following decade Ferrara became an active board member of the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, the Arts Council, and the Downtown Development District. He also co-founded ARTDOCS, a no-cost medical program for artists without health insurance that operated from 1999 to 2012, and from 2013-2024 he was an invited guest, panelist, and participant at the Aspen Institute in Colorado.
In 2007, the gallery re-located to its current Julia Street location in the heart of the Arts District New Orleans. Over the past 20 years, the gallery has grown to become one of the most well-known galleries in the South, with international projects in Cuba, Germany, Jordan, Mexico, Switzerland, and across the US. In 2024, the partnership with long-time gallery director Matthew Showman was finalized and the gallery name changed to Ferrara Showman Gallery. This enabled Ferrara to return his focus to making his own artwork, his original intention of opening a gallery over 30 years ago. He built a new studio in his home and in 2025 debuted new work at Fidelity Bank White Linen Night exhibition, This City Holds Us, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
In his diverse and decorated career, art-making has always remained central for Ferrara. Two additional recent projects of note include the 2015 Guns In The Hands of Artists exhibition (which he also curated and traveled to seven cities across the country and published a corresponding 240-page book with essays by over 20 well-known authors and an introduction by Walter Isaacson. In 2020 , he created the Hope Photo Project responding to the pandemic, for which he took over 500 photographs of New Orleanians such as John Goodman holding the iconic HOPE street sign. Ferrara exported this project to Amman, Haiti, Jerusalem, and Minneapolis where photogrpahers from those cities added their voices of hope to the project. in 2019, he was commissioned by a private collector to create a twelve-foot-tall cast bronze version of his Excalibur No More sculpture from the Guns exhibition - incorporating a 3000-pound boulder. Ferrara’s career has taken him all around the world – all the while calling New Orleans home. It is only fitting that for his first solo exhibition 23 years, his return starts at the gallery he created for that explicit purpose.
Artist Statement
This new body of work is an extension of my installation from “This City Holds Us (2025)” entitled “Offering”. It consisted of thirty-five life-size sets of my hands extending from the gallery wall in a grid measuring ten by six feet. That piece began my work with creating sculpture from a unique process that I developed with the new medium of 3D printing. I cast my hands in plaster and then collaborated with the 3D printing lab at Tulane’s School of Architecture to render them in polylactate. Once printed, I take these hands and put them through a process in my studio with epoxy, paint, and varnish that transforms them, en masse, back to the texture of actual hands with various finishes that replicate diverse media from ceramic to glass to stainless steel. The versatility of this material and process allows me to be dynamic in the production of sculpture as the creative process unfolds.
Various concepts and themes run through the work in the exhibition depending on orientation within the work.
“Dissemination”: the flow of information in an outward motion from the center, from large to small and vice versa. Knowledge is spread from one source to the masses. Voices become louder as they grow in number.
“Worship”: where the hands move from smaller to larger as to emulate the movement inward where the group’s energy is moving towards a focal point, a common goal, desire, or belief.
“Community and Protection”: where the larger hands (people) are protecting the growth and development of their community, their family, their people.
Meditation and Contemplation: the active process of reflection, consideration and imagination with a focus inward.
All of these are messages, I am trying to convey via the arrangement and orientation of the individual sets of hands.. In the main gallery, most of the works are monochromatic in nature with gold, black, copper and chrome. This is meant for the viewer to focus on the form and the content without any distraction of color.
Punctuating the exhibition is an installation of 20+ works entitled “In Bloom”. This suite of colorful works embraces the concepts of the aforementioned artworks while utilizing visual references to flowers such as a Japanese Magnolia, a Chocolate Tuber, a Ring of Fire Sunflower, or a Pink Zinnia. Blooming flowers are nature’s dissemination, just as there is a protection system as they begin to bloom. The larger flower works are joined by smaller individual “buds” that reference the act of protection as the flowers begin the process of blooming. Often, we look for the human form in nature, in clouds, in trees, and many other visuals from nature and I find it interesting to be able to utilize the human form to create works that can emulate nature.
The shape and form of the hands are important. They are a universal symbol of an offering - a gesture of peace, vulnerability, sharing, and receiving. These hands gesture to the viewer, inviting them into the idea that is presented, welcoming them to be a part of the work and to see themselves in the messages offered. Conceptually, my work has often involved the use of multiples. I find an inherent power and emphasis in repetition - rows, grids, stacking, and sets have appealed to me visually. Composed of 12 – 75 hands each, they are printed at various scales and arranged to create movement and undulation within the piece. To be able create these works in unison, I developed specific technical processes to be able to work on multiple hands at once achieving the result of one piece made from numerous sets of hands.
Jasper Johns once said “I don’t know what kind of artist I am” which reflected his reluctance to categorize his practice, emphasizing process over labels amid his explorations in various media. I feel the same about my practice as it encompasses so many different areas. My artwork has a wide breath. In my 35-year career, I have created paintings, sculpture, installation art, and photography alongside curatorial and entrepreneurial projects. I am a painter, sculptor, photographer, author, gallery owner, curator, cultural producer, and poet. I consider all of these to be my artwork.
Cirriculum Vitae
Education
BA - The Pennsylvania State University - State College, PA - 1989
Solo Exhibitions
Offerings, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA , May - July 2026
Hope Photo Project, New Orleans, LA, Jerusalem, Israel, Amman, Jordan, Port -au-Prince Haiti, Minneapolis, MN, 2020-21
Jonathan Ferrara, Steve Martin Studio, Miami, FL, May 2008
The Delachaise Suite, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2003
Inaugural Exhibition, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, September 1998
Portraits and Landscapes in Silk, Dragonfly Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, June 1998
Icons and Color, Positive Space The Gallery, New Orleans, LA, October 1997
Color and Form, OXOXO Gallery, Baltimore, MD, November 1996
Selected Group Exhibitions
This City Holds Us - Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2025
Guns in the Hands of Artists, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT, 2018
Guns in the Hands of Artists, New America Foundation, Washington DC, 2017
Guns in the Hands of Artists, Minneapolis, MN, 2017
Guns in the Hands of Artists, Miami Project, Art Basel Miami Beach, 2016
Guns in the Hands of Artists, Des Lee Gallery Washington University St. Louis, 2016
Guns in the Hands of Artists, The Aspen Institute, Aspen, CO, 2016
Guns in the Hands of Artists, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA 2015
Currency II, University Alabama Birmingham Gallery, Birmingham, AL, 2011
Southern Organic, Rymer Gallery, Nashville, TN , 2010
P.1 Projects, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA 2008
Kaleidoscope Katrina, Windows of Lord and Taylor, Fifth Ave, NY, NY , 2007
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Steve Martin Studio, Miami, FL, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile Returns Home, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Shreveport Regional Arts Center, Shreveport, LA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Arts Without Borders Gallery, Hapeville, GA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Lambert Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 2006
AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York, NY, 2005
Contemporary Art From New Orleans, Koncz Gallery, Debrecen Hungary, 2004
Paperwork, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2002
The Black & White Show, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2001
Entergy Louisiana Open Juried Exhibition, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA, 2006
The Art Exchange Show, New York, New York, 1998
Guns In The Hands of Artists, DCAC Gallery, Washington, DC, 1998
The Art Exchange Show, New York, New York, 1997
Guns In The Hands of Artists, Positive Space Gallery, 1996
Centennial Olympics, Barristers Gallery/House of Blues, Atlanta, GA, 1996
Group, Mario Villa Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1995
Curation
Cuba Revisited: Contemporary Art from Cuba, Ferrara Showman Gallery, New Orleans,LA , 2023
Guns in the Hands of Artists Traveling Exhibition, New Orleans, Aspen, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Miami, Washington DC, Fairfield, CT, 2015 – 2018
No Dead Artists, Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, Annually 1995 to present
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Steve Martin Studio, Miami, FL, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile Returns Home, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Shreveport Regional Arts Center, Shreveport, LA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Arts Without Borders Gallery, Hapeville, GA, 2006
New Orleans Artists In Exile, Lambert Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 2006
Nouveaux Artistes d’Acadiana, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2005
Contemporary Art From New Orleans, Koncz Gallery, Debrecen Hungary, 2004
As Seen In New Orleans, Mu-Terem Gallery, Debrecen, Hungary, 2004
Havana: Inside Out, Contemporary Art From Cuba 2004, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2004
Made In Cuba, Contemporary Art From Cuba 2002, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2004
The Black & White Show, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2001
Not Your Typical Still Life, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2001
Collections
Permanent Collection, Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
Richard Baker, Lord and Taylor, NY, NY
Katherine Wilson Blackney, Memphis, TN
Hugh and Beth Lambert, New Orleans, LA
Dr. Jonathan Lampert, New York, NY
Mike and Brenda Moffit, New Orleans, LA
Kristi and John Schiller, Houston, TX
Alfre Woodard, Los Angeles, CA
