Painter Dona Lief’s brightly colored canvases have been dubbed by Gambit art critic D. Eric Bookhardt as belonging to the school of “Visionary Imagism.” Living in her adopted hometown of New Orleans since the 1960s, Lief earned an M.F.A. in painting from Tulane University; by the early 1990s, she was part of a regional school that emerged from the Faubourg Marigny gallery of George Febres. The Visionary Imagism label is derived from this group’s figurative paintings infused with vivid colors, humor, pop-culture references, and visual narrative. Lief’s most recent exhibitions have been inspired by the BP oil spill, sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic church, and the morbid absurdity of Michael Jackson’s cult of personality.

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Web of Deceit

Speak No Evil

Like a Virgin

Madonna of the Monarchs

Elizabeth in the Cleopatra Mode

Britney’s Buzz

And the Butterflies Begin to Sing

Among the Butterflies

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