Organica Art Show Opens January 23 at Coast Episcopal’s Gail Keenan Art Center
Organica, a group art show featuring plant-based and/or plant-inspired work by six artists, will open on Friday, January 23 with a complimentary reception from 5 – 7 pm at the Gail Keenan Art Center on the Coast Episcopal School campus. will open Friday, January 23.
The show is the second of three professional shows being curated by Bay St. Louis artist and photographer Ann Madden during 2025-2026 school year of the Long Beach independent school.
Participating artists include: Brooke P Alexander, a North Mississippi- based painter who is currently teaching at the University of Mississippi. Her work, often influenced by literature and memory, resulted in her being cited as the 2024 South Arts Fellow for Mississippi.
Martha Whitney Butler is an award-winning floral designer who owns the French Potager in Old Town Bay St. Louis. Her works’ influences come from her background in antiques, art history, museum studies, nature, and historic European designs. She is also the mom of a Coast Episcopal School student.
Mary Helen Harper is an incredibly gifted cellist and exquisite painter. Her works reflect a concentration in florals, and, as she splits her time between Spain, Los Angeles, and Mobile, Alabama, she is constantly inspired by a diversity of florals.
Danielle Inabinet is a coast-based artist who has an MFA in ceramics from Tulane University. In her recent past, Danielle has taught ceramics as an adjunct professor at Tulane. She has experience as a stained glass artist, and she creates incredible site specific installations in porcelain as well as functional pieces.
James Inabinet, Danielle’s father, is a local naturalist and philosopher, community builder, artist, and weaver. As the Director of La Terre Bioregional Center in Kiln, MS, his passionate mission is to facilitate the establishment of thriving humans on a thriving planet through an ecological communion with this land, authentic self, and others. Dr. Inabinet recently hosted his own and highly successful art show, Walkabout, at the Gail Keenan Art Center.
Aubrey Pohl, from Bay St. Louis, is an assistant professor of Graphic Design at Mississippi State. He is a designer, researcher, artist, visual communicator, and lover of images whose practice institutes a multitude of experimental and traditional processes. Above all, both as a designer and a human, Aubrey engages in social awareness and activism in design, looking to learn from the processes of architecture and trading the construction of physical spaces for metaphysical ones.
Organica will run through March 13 and will be available, by appointment, for viewing on weekdays that Coast Episcopal School is open. Individuals wishing to see the show are asked to contact the school at 228-452-9442 to schedule a day and time. A complimentary closing reception will be held from 4 – 6 pm on Friday, March 13.
The third and final Ann Madden-curated show for the 2025-2026 school year is STARDUST/Paper Fools, Friday, March 27 – Friday, May , 2026.
The Gail Keenan Art Gallery furthers the mission of Coast Episcopal School: fostering a lifelong love of learning while enhancing our longstanding emphasis on both academic excellence and the arts. The mission of the art gallery is to accompany and enhance arts education at CES and its connection to the development of the whole child.
The gallery provides a visual space for the students to nurture and express their artistic talents and “experience” themselves as creative contributors to our world. It serves as a teaching resource to enable students to make connections between art and life, while expanding learning opportunities through the robust visiting artists program. Through exhibiting works of regional artists, the gallery serves the community at large and increases awareness of the broad education offered at Coast Episcopal School.
The Gail Keenan Art Center was dedicated in February 2011 to the memory of the recognized ceramic artist and printmaker who was born in 1940 in New Orleans and passed away in February 2005. Ms. Keenan’s ties to the MS Gulf Coast were strong throughout her lifetime, during which she had works exhibited in Santa Cruz, CA; New Orleans, LA; Chicago, IL; Kansas City, KA; Ocean Springs, MS; Camden, ME; and Boston, MA, Ms. Keenan’s love for the arts continues to be honored in the works created and exhibited in the Coast Episcopal School signature art center.
Coast Episcopal School has been dedicated to a life-long love of learning by developing the whole child – mind, body and spirit – and providing a joyful, unique, and nurturing Judeo-Christian community that inspires its students to imagine and create a better world. Founded in 1950, CES is a member of the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS). For additional information: Coast Episcopal School, 5065 Espy Avenue, Long Beach MS 39560. 228-452-9442 coastepiscopalschool.org
