Perspectives: Terrance Osborne
New Orleans Culture, Concentrated
Stepping into the Terrance Osborne Gallery on Magazine Street feels like the visual equivalent of participating in a second line. Much like New Orleans brass band music, Osborne’s work is bold and vibrant, grabbing the viewer and pulling them in, demanding their participation as loudly and warmly as a trumpet line or a bass drumbeat. His colorful acrylic paintings made on sheets of plywood are the focal point (he began painting on wood in college because it was cheaper than canvas, and still prefers it). Sight is not the only sense the gallery engages, however: lavender essential oils permeate the air, a lush red shag rug blankets the floor, and if second line music isn’t playing from the speakers, then it’s an energetic hit from the likes of Anderson .Paak or Beyoncé.
A graduate of Xavier University, Osborne—a New Orleans native—began his career as an art teacher with aspirations towards becoming a full-time artist, but a family to support. “After Katrina hit, that was my opportunity, which I was not willing to take at first,” Osborne said. But while evacuated to rural Georgia after the storm, his wife Stephanie, a meditation guide who leads sessions from the gallery today (hence the lavender scent and cozy rug for floor-sitting), encouraged him to focus on his artwork rather than seeking out another teaching job. “I wasn’t really for that, because I was afraid, really,” Osborne admitted.
But a commission came, and when he completed that came another, then another. Eventually, a full year passed of Osborne solely creating artwork. “So fast forward, and I’ve never stopped,” Osborne said in his matter-of-fact, humble manner. “I’ve done only artwork since then, and my career has taken a steady incline, slowly but surely. So, I’m grateful for that.”
Having accomplished the ultimate success of building a career from his passion, Osborne encourages everyone to pursue what they love. “Because if you're doing what you love, then you're happy. And then you push that out to the world, then other people get to enjoy what you're doing,” Osborne explained. “So, I'm always an advocate for doing what you love.”
[Read Christina Leo's story on Terrance Osborne from Country Roads' Arts Monthly newsletter here.]
These days, his commissions have grown to include five Jazz and Heritage Festival posters (one of the highest honors for a New Orleans artist), as well as partnerships with major national companies like Coca Cola and Heineken. Companies seek Osborne out because his artwork shouts “New Orleans”; the city he was born and raised in permeates nearly all of his work. He has a knack for taking the most iconic aspects of his city—its shapes, its flavors, its personalities—condensing them down to their truest, brightest form, and putting them on display. Second lines, shotgun houses, crawfish “berls,” and Mardi Gras revelers abound, because, Osborne explained, all of these icons are deeply woven into his memories.
Finding most of his footing in the Tremé neighborhood, experiences playing underneath his family’s raised house sparked a fascination with New Orleans architecture so evident in many of his paintings. “And it's also sort of rustic, no lines are straight. And you know, it's a little bit rigid, and just powerfully colorful….just like New Orleans.”
Like anyone raised in the Crescent City, Osborne has fond memories of attending Mardi Gras parades as a kid, and the energy of those experiences on the parade route has stayed with him. “I was like every child, frantically trying to get the beads,” he chuckled. “So I guess that is the energy I like to capture. Most of my appreciation came later though, because as a kid you’re not really processing it. That’s just part of your world and your culture. As an adult, I have a double appreciation for it.The art of it is fascinating—the work that they do to the floats.”
A more recent work from 2020, titled “Throw Me Somethin’ Mistah!” depicts a woman bedecked in purple, green, and gold with a blue wig, gold-toothed-mouth agape in an exuberant smile, arms stretched wide to catch beads, just behind an N.O.P.D. parade barricade. “Everybody's seen that lady,” Osborne said matter-of-factly. “So, she encompasses an energy of Mardi Gras…I’m more interested in sort of a general character that people can tie into to understand the culture.”
The Terrance Osborne Gallery
3029 Magazine Street
New Orleans LA 70115