Ron Bechet exhibit pays tribute to Black life and resilience

Image courtesy of Contemporary Arts Center.

By Brynnan Smith
Contributing Writer

The first Saturday of the month in New Orleans is reserved for artists. On that day, art goers and purveyors gather on and around Julia Street in the city’s downtown arts district to discover new works, engage artists at every level and commune with others who share their passion for local arts and artists.

On April 5 at 6 p.m., as part of that Saturday tradition, the Contemporary Arts Center unveiled an exhibition that not only shined a light on a renowned local artist but also on Black life and the city itself as it inches toward the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

“From the Storms of Our Souls: The Art of Ron Bechet” is a reflective collection of large-scale monochrome works that traverse the depths and contradictions of Black life in America. The expansive portraits include visual elements and imagery arising from nature, meant to invite viewers to explore Blackness and Black identity and the everyday experiences of Blacks in America.

This collection of over 40 works center on identity, memory and resilience, all told through the medium of charcoal. According to Bechet, a highly-regarded artist and storyteller who was born in New Orleans in 1956 and whose career spans more than 40 years, the use of charcoal in this exhibit is pivotal for its storytelling. Bechet said he is very intentional when using a material like charcoal to tell his story.

“It is a very basic material, carbon, that makes marks on paper. I address complicated human issues in contradiction to our complexity,” Bechet said.

Through his work with charcoal, Bechet has been able to tackle issues of Black life and the Black experience in a form that is new and thought-provoking. Charcoal’s deep black shades are also used as a backdrop to shine a light on the stories often forgotten and neglected through time.

“Through drawings on paper and on the walls of the CAC, Mr. Bechet constructs new monuments of memory and resistance through a Black visuality of belonging,” said Shana M. griffin [sic], curator of the exhibition, in a statement.

“Using the raw intensity of charcoal, he connects the past, present, and future, exploring the often-overlooked connections between forest ecosystems and the physical, spiritual, and cultural survival of Black life,” griffin continued.

Teaching, learning, listening and exploration of Black identity are all things this exhibit looks to confront and bring to the community. Bechet is also making sure the importance of his art in spaces like the Contemporary Art Center is felt.

“I think one of the main stories is [that] we are human and suffer the same humane issues… (told) through a lens of a history of oppression that often goes unattended,” Bechet said on the stories often left untold of the Black experience.

He hopes to reveal this unspoken history of oppression through this collection of charcoal pieces, an art form he teaches to his students and the community of artists he mentors each year. This unique ability to connect and build so many relationships is something Bechet, who is the Victor Labat Endowed Professor in Fine Arts at Xavier University of Louisiana, has credited to his time as a professor.

“What you give, you get back even more. It is important to realize that I learn to listen and teach listening in both the studio and the classroom,” Bechet said.

The exhibit is supported in part by the Rosemary Foundation and the New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund.

The exhibit also has themes that connect with the resilience of Black people as the city marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

“I am very proud of my Black ethnicity, and by being in a show like this where I can show that pride, that sense of who I am in the public eye, the more we can understand our humanness and then treat each other accordingly,” Bechet said of this exhibit.

“From the Storms of Our Souls: The Art of Ron Bechet” will be on view to the public through September. The Contemporary Arts Center is open to the public Wednesday-Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the exhibit, visit www.cacno.org.

This article originally published in the April 7, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.