The Ross Reilly factor

Much to the detriment of the Baton Rouge art community, Winifred Ross Reilly (pictured right) has not shown her artwork publicly since 1994.

At least not until now.

Her first individual exhibition in more than 12 years is entitled Luck Favors the Prepared. It’s a collection of silkscreen and mixed media, and closed at the end of October after much success. Ross Reilly, who usually likes to stay out of the limelight, credits gallery owner and friend Ann Connelly for her re-emergence onto the local art scene.

“She tricked me,” Ross Reilly jokes. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But, in all honesty it’s been great.”

Not defined by one medium, Ross Reilly, who has a Master’s degree from the Pratt Institute, has dabbled in drawing, painting, encaustic and ceramics. But she’s been concentrating on large format screen prints since April, when Lamar Graphics asked her to create some works for their offices (her husband is Lamar CEO Kevin Reilly).

Working between Lamar’s industrial silkscreen facilities on Beaumont Drive and her home studio, she created a montage of multimedia works on paper and acrylic. Using layers of appropriated and original images, some of which have been silk-screened up to 20 times, she creates large-scale abstractions that convey her personality through relationships and memories. Her work is complex and multifaceted, opening up endless possibilities for interpretation.

Lamar is phasing out the traditional silk-screening process in favor of an all-digital format, so soon Ross Reilly will have to channel her muse through another medium.

Realizing that the series would be short-lived, Ross Reilly’s friend convinced her to show her work in Connelly’s Jefferson Highway gallery. Local art collectors were soon clamoring for the slick, urban multimedia prints, including buyers for Saks Fifth Avenue, who bought three for the newly reopened New Orleans store.

Her work was also used by Dwell magazine, which borrowed some pieces from the gallery for a photo shoot of designer David Baird’s modern home, which occasionally doubles as an art gallery.

“People always ask me what she’s going to do when the screen printing runs out and I just laugh and say, ‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s going to be just fine,’” Connelly says. “She’ll use it to its capacity and once it’s gone she’ll move into something else. That’s the great thing about her work, it’s so prolific.”