Robert Cargo Folk Art Gallery

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Roy Ferdinand (1959 - 2004)

Roy Ferdinand painted the tough New Orleans neighborhoods where he shared his life on the streets with drug dealers and junkies, pimps and whores. His uncompromisingly realistic style can be unsettling in its brutal and sexually explicit depictions of an inner-city "gangsta" lifestyle. The African-American artist was a self-proclaimed “street gorilla” and a practitioner of an African form of voodoo. His work has been exhibited in several gallery shows and is in the permanent collections of the African American Museum in Dallas and the art museum of the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Ferdinand died of cancer at the age of 45 in December 2004.

"Known in New Orleans art circles as a sort of ‘Goya of the ghetto,’ Ferdinand has described his work as rap in pictures, while some critics have placed his utterly honest depictions of inner city decay within the social realist tradition of Courbet." from Bill Sasser article on Roy Ferdinand in RAW VISION full article

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		Rose Motel 1990, 28” x 22” marker on posterboard SOLD

		Dead End 1990, 28” x 22” pen, pencil, marker on posterboard $600

	photo available on request	sexually graphic subject 1991, 28” x 22” pen, pencil, marker on posterboard SOLD

References:
Chuck and Jan Rosenak, 1996