Bianca Walker Quarters, 2023. house paint on drop cloth, 9' x 12'

The UNO St. Claude Gallery in New Orleans presents Bianca Walker’s MFA thesis exhibition entitled “Props.” Through painting and animation, Walker invites visitors to participate in a celebration of Black labor.

Their research-based practice involves selecting historical photographs of the Black diaspora from public digital archives, then re-envisioning these images through viscerally dripping house paint on ripped drop cloth to present contemporary portraits of Black labor. Walker encourages viewers to recognize these laborers for their humanity and skills instead of their exploitation.

Walker currently lives in New Orleans, and will earn an MFA in Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans in May 2023. Walker has exhibited their work at venues including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the New Orleans African American Museum, Spillman Blackwell Gallery and Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, LA; and Band of Vices and Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles, CA. Walker’s work has been featured in solo shows in New Orleans at Antenna and the Front, and—concurrently with “Props” at the UNO St. Claude Gallery—at the Galleria T293 in Rome, Italy.

The exhibition will be open to the public at 2429 St. Claude Ave. from March 12 through April 1, 2023. The artist will also be present, physically working in the space and available for questions during gallery hours for the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition is open during gallery hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12-5 p.m.