Jonathan “rat de bois farouche” Mayers is a Louisiana Creole artist and writer from Baton Rouge, LA. His paintings depict metaphorical beasts amid meticulously rendered landscapes. The mysterious creatures – somewhat wicked, somewhat charming – were born of the artist’s familiarity with Louisiana folklore, and serve to illustrate his opinion pertaining to the reality we live in. The haunting, curious images and his bilingual texts also address the current fragility of our ecosystem, most specifically the southern region of Louisiana. Mayers’ work connects with experiences redolent of adventure through visual, textual, and sometimes tactile means. He collects material – such as Jean Lafitte sediment – from each physical place he visits and considers the thoughtful implementation of these materials into his work essential. This is most evident in his colorful, embellished frames, which work to both corral and embrace his visual narratives. His most recent curatorial collaborative project, Mythologies Louisianaises, presents trilingual texts in International Louisiana French, Louisiana Creole, and English, bringing together artists and writers based on their common connection to Francophone and Créolophone cultures of Louisiana.

While in residence, Mayers created high-relief, mixed-media works presenting landscapes from Grand Isle, Bayou Segnette, St. Bernard Parish and Maurepas Swamp. They are populated with imaginary beasts using paint and physical materials from the region to bring awareness to consequences surrounding environmental change, human conflict, cultural identity, and attitudes toward la Terre. To further these narratives and in celebration of historic multiculturalism in Balbancha, the Tricentennial year of New Orleans, and the 50th Anniversary of CODOFIL, he wrote a bilingual French and English mythological micro story or poem for each work completed.