Jan Gilbert

Based in and deeply influenced by her native New Orleans, Jan Gilbert mines memory, loss and transition. Layered, intimate meditations on place, people, and patina, her works range in scale and scope: from her compact bookwork 30 Years/30 Blocks to Biography of a House, a ribbon of embalmed family photos encircling her mother’s flooded post-Katrina home as her dad’s taped recordings wafted from its windows. Gilbert, both individually and as co-founder of the artist/writer collaborative The VESTIGES Project, has directed, produced, and participated as a core artist in collaborative, public art projects and site interactions across the United States and abroad.

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts have awarded her individual artist’s fellowships. Her projects have received support from the NEA/Rockefeller Initiative for Interdisciplinary Artists; Art Matters, Inc.; The Warhol and Ford Foundations; the Trust for Mutual Understanding; and the National Association of Artist’s Organizations. The Arts Council of New Orleans in 2013 honored Gilbert with a Community Arts Award. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of New Orleans and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Tulane University.