MixHaus Opening Reception for Lagniappe: New Mixed Media Works by Douglas Galloway

Description

"Lagniappe is my offering to a city that gave me far more than I ever expected. It is a collection born from gratitude, celebrating the beauty found in humble places and the extraordinary gift of finding a place that, for a time, became home. There are places that shape us long after we’ve left them. For me, that place is New Orleans. 

"In the city’s vernacular, ‘lagniappe’ means a ‘little something extra’—an unexpected gift, freely offered. During my twenties and thirties, New Orleans gave me that gift. It slipped quietly into my life through its color, music, people, and unmistakable sense of home. Decades later, those impressions continue to find their way into my work. 

"This collection is less about the city itself than the memories it left behind. Inspired by the weathered shotgun houses and Acadian cottages tucked into its neighborhoods, these paintings borrow from walls faded by the Southern sun, Caribbean colors softened by time, and layers of paint that speak of generations who passed through the same front door. Within those modest homes lived extraordinary lives. They witnessed family dinners that overflowed into every room, backyard fish fries where neighbors became family, the sounds of jazz, rhythm and blues drifting through open windows, celebrations, grief, resilience, and quiet moments that rarely make history but shape us nonetheless. 

"Built with layers of paint, paper, wax, and texture, each piece carries fragments of those memories, not as literal places, but as emotional landscapes. They’re impressions of warmth, belonging, and the invisible stories that remain long after the people have gone." 

—Douglas Galloway 

DOUGLAS GALLOWAY spent his formative years primarily in the East Texas and Louisiana regions, informed by Old South mysticism and Creole legends, and punctuated by family road trips to Sweetwater, Texas. In the mid 1980's he moved to San Antonio, Texas where he immersed himself in the Latin culture, with their rich festivals and depth of family devotion. After a period, he returned to New Orleans. The loss and devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina dropped him into a 10-year exploration of Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, and Gnostic Christian practices. But it was his father’s dying wish that he return to art that brought Douglas back into the world of painting. 

Soon after, Douglas returned to San Antonio—the place he had felt most alive—to begin his art practice again with a cleared-eyed wisdom and renewed purpose. He maintains a studio in the Southtown arts district of San Antonio.