Courtesy of Roz LeCompte.
Kristy Cornell
Artwork by Kristy Cornell.
The idea for an arts exchange had been brewing in the mind of FrancoFAE founder Rozalyn LeCompte for over a year. But it all coalesced while she was watching a performance by the Holiday Playgirls. It was Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, an event that has brought Acadiana together in a grand expression of shared heritage for fifty years now.
LeCompte, a visual artist, has been on her own journey of exploring and expressing her Acadian roots—a journey that culminated in a solo exhibition at the Acadiana Center for the Arts last fall, titled RÊVERIE. Her fever dream folk art-style abstractions are built from a language of symbols drawn from LeCompte’s experience of home and heritage, of a distinct Acadian-ness. That experience sharing her art on such a platform, where other Acadian artists could engage with it, was addicting. She wanted more. “It felt so good to just share everything,” she said. “I wanted to continue that, to seek out who else would be interested in my perception of home as a Cajun girl . . . What a gift it is to see your work from external eyes. It's an invaluable learning experience for the community as well, especially when shared lineage is the common thread.”
"'And how punk rock is it to raise your hand and be like, ‘We survived, and let’s talk about it, and make art together, and share with our community!’" —Roz LeCompte
She had begun to fantasize about hosting Acadian artists from elsewhere in a residency of sorts in the cabin on her property. Then, hearing the Holiday Playgirls belt out their contemporary interpretations of the Cajun musical storytelling canon, at a festival where other Louisiana roots bands were doing the same—it all crystallized for LeCompte. This network, this platform for Acadian musical expression—visual artists needed one, too.
It wasn’t just the local opportunities our cultural infrastructure has designed for Acadiana’s music scene that LeCompte wanted to emulate, but the international ones. For decades, Louisiana’s French-speaking musicians have built and fostered relationships across the Acadian diaspora, traveling and collaborating with Canadian and French musicians who can trace their ancestry back to Acadie. “There isn’t anything like that for visual artists that I'm aware of,” said LeCompte. So, she set out to build it.
Courtesy of Roz LeCompte.
Cayla Zeek
Artwork by Cayla Zeek.
In November 2024, she launched the Franco Fine Arts Exchange, a nonprofit organization built with a goal of cultivating connections through the visual arts between Acadian descendants across the globe. She put out a roll call—starting out entirely by word of mouth, emails, and social media. “I realized there was no centralized directory of Acadian artists,” she said. “Like, where is everybody? Where did everyone end up?”
[Read this: RÊVERIE - Artist Roz LeCompte Paints the Game of Hope]
The directory is already more than twenty artists strong—most of them from Louisiana, but extending all the way to the Mi’kma’ki region of Canada. Many of these artists are featured in the organization’s first group exhibition, titled FrancoFAE: Correspondance—A Reflection of Acadian People Throughout Time, on display at the Acadiana Center for the Arts through June 16. Among the works featured are Zozo Huval’s vernacular textiles and adornments, Melissa Bonin’s atmospheric painted reveries, and Kristie Cornell’s black and white photo of a 1500 year old cypress, which inspired the exhibition statement by Brooke Broussard:
“Here, in this room, with Mama Cypress, the cousins are together. They meet again, and correspond. And a very old story is picked back up to be told in a chorus of new voices.”
Courtesy of Roz LeCompte
Chase Julien
Artwork by Chase Julien.
There was also a work that LeCompte has declared an example of an “Art Jam”—a multimedia, international collaboration between Canadian artist Francois Gaudet and Acadiana artist Lucius Fontenot.
“The goal is to really connect these artists all the time, not just for these exhibitions,” said LeCompte, once again taking inspiration from the way Louisiana’s music scene facilitates connection that surpasses geography, and even language. “They speak the same language musically in a jam. They connect.” In this way, “Art Jams” will collapse distance and meld visions, one artist creating something to be mailed out and completed, riffed on, and expanded by another artist a world away. “There is a pre-existing connection when meeting other Acadian artists—it feels like an extension of home,” said LeCompte.
Courtesy of Roz LeCompte.
Melissa Bonin
Artwork by Melissa Bonin.
Such coming-togetherness is an exercise in discourse, discovery, and, thus, inspiration. During LeCompte’s solo exhibition at the ACA, she hosted a “tea talk,” in which creatives and art-lovers gathered in the gallery to casually discuss their interpretations and experiences of her work. Such cozy, comfortable gatherings around art appreciation are at the heart of her vision for FrancoFAE. “I just think art sparks deeper conversations, because we can express things we can’t really say, through emotions, expressions, gestures,” she said. “It’s such a vulnerable thing, expressing something and then sharing it and talking about it with other people . . . And how punk rock is it to raise your hand and be like, ‘We survived, and let’s talk about it, and make art together, and share with our community!’”
