LAFAYETTE, LA – Acadiana Center for the Arts (AcA) hosts “Eugene James Martin: Heterochronic Collages” in its Main Gallery beginning February 12, 2022 and running through May 14, 2022.

Martin is an African American artist based in Lafayette, LA, who passed away in 2005. He is best known for his imaginative, complex collages on paper and his often humorous pencil and pen and ink drawings.

The exhibition opens to the public with reception during Second Saturday ArtWalk on February 12, 6pm-9pm with an AcA members-only reception from 4pm-6pm. Support AcA’s programs by becoming a member at https://acadianacenterforthearts.org/membership/.

This exhibition in AcA’s Main Gallery is the largest retrospective of Martin’s work to-date, including more than 175 paintings and collages spanning the artist’s career. The artworks displayed in this exhibition are an exploration of the theme, “heterochronic collages.” “Heterochronic collage” is a concept coined by Martin to describe the process of using and reusing previously made imagery within later works of art via photography and collage.

An extremely prolific artist, Martin is originally from Washington DC, and lived in Lafayette from the 1990’s until his death. Martin called many of his works “satirical abstracts,” and his paintings and collages are a mixture of pure abstraction and representation. Martin’s paintings on paper and canvas incorporate whimsical allusions to animal, machine and structural imagery among areas of “pure”, constructed, biomorphic, or disciplined lyrical abstraction.

This exhibition was made possible by presenting sponsors Derrick Batiste and Katie Bernhardt & RJ Fonseca, Jr. and by an Exhibition Host Committee, including Ravi Daggula, Dr. Ann Laurent, Mandi Mitchell, Adam & Angela Morrison, Lue Svendson, John Williams, and the Women of Wisdom.

“These supporters have underwritten the exhibition’s cost, allowing the AcA to present this significant work to the public during our daily gallery hours, during field trips from area schools, and during Second Saturday ArtWalks,” says AcA Executive Director Samuel Oliver. “We are excited and honored to present Eugene Martin’s work this spring, with a special opening during Black History Month.”

AcA’s Visual Arts Programs feature exhibitions by world-class artists, presented to the public in Downtown Lafayette. These programs are supported year-round by Doug Ashy Building Materials, the Haynie Family Foundation, Lafayette Travel, a Rebirth Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Louisiana Office of Cultural Development, Louisiana Travel, and National Endowment for the Arts.