Sculpture collection representing gun violence displayed at Ohr-O’Keefe
A local artist has created a series of sculptures surrounding a theme of gun violence, focusing on the horror and fear of deadly crimes.
Mitchell Gaudet has been crafting the pieces since 2015. Each year he displays one in front of New Orleans City Hall, where he will often have an emotional exchange with any stranger who finds a loved one’s name among the hundreds featured on his sculptures.
The whole collection is now on display at Ohr-O’Keefe in Biloxi.
His latest assembly is a mantle made of almost 13,000 bullet casings, the number representing the average amount of gun homicides in the U.S. each year. “What happened with that experience, was — the interaction with the public, it wasn’t about me and my work, it was them and their stories, and I was completely unprepared for it. And really, this is the eighth year I’m working on it, 2022 is in the exhibition, and every time I go out something else happens, there’s another conversation. I’m not solving the problem, I’m not sure how that can happen so quickly. But I want to show people that this is a problem.”
The museum will formally welcome Gaudet and his work on March 25th.
