It was my pleasure by Anastasia Pelias
Anastasia Pelias
b. 1959, New Orleans
Lives in New Orleans, LA
Venue
St. John Park, on Saint Bernard Ave and Allen Toussaint Blvd, between New York St and Frankfort St.
About The Project
It was my pleasure, 2021
Fiberglass, polyester resin, steel, concrete, pine bark, bay leaf, water-based paint, soundscape, scent
Courtesy the artist and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery
It was my pleasure responds to feminist histories of spirituality and power, through a meditation on ancient Greek history. The sculpture is a reimagining of the tripod of the Oracle of Delphi, a position occupied by a priestess known as the Pythia, who foretold the future for individuals and heads of state who travelled to Delphi to seek her counsel. This position was occupied by women for more than one thousand years (1400 BC to the 4th century AD), and exerted great influence throughout the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian empires; emperors made no significant decision without her consultation. The sculpture, as well as the scent and sound that accompany it, is intended as a meditative space for contemplation and for honoring divine feminine energy across space and time. Through this sculpture, Pelias seeks to create connections between her native city of New Orleans and her family’s ancestral country, Greece.
About The Artist
Anastasia Pelias received a BFA from Newcomb College of Tulane University, New Orleans (1981), and an MFA from the University of New Orleans (1996). A painter and sculptor, her work explores color and the tension between object and form. Her site-specific installations examines personal history, familial relationships, and human ritual. She draws from her Greek and New Orleanian heritage to infuse her work with her preferred subjects: love, sex, death, destiny, and the female experience. Pelias’s work invites viewers to immerse themselves in the expression of her story, but also to examine that story introspectively. Pelias has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums nationwide, including the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Ford Foundation Gallery, New York; Pensacola Museum of Ar, Floridat; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art; McNay Art Museum; Ogden Museum of Southern Art; Newcomb Museum; Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama, and in private and public collections around the world. Pelias is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans.
EJ Hill, Rises in the East, 2021. Multimedia installation, dimensions variable. Installation view: Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. Joe W. Brown Park, New Orleans. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans. Photo: Jonathan Traviesa