In 1978, a ferocious blaze at a studio compelled artist Tina Girouard to relocate from New York City, where she had been a fixture in the downtown art milieu for ten years, back to Louisiana, the state where she originated in 1946. Despite the destruction caused by the fire, her return home was not akin to surrender. Girouard, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 73, was perpetually in a cycle of returning—both in the physical sense and in more expansive, philosophical contexts. Traversing eras and locations was a central focus of her multifaceted creative endeavor.
“This connection to place, which does not imply permanence but rather recurrent departure and return, is deeply woven into Tina’s narrative,” remarks Andrea Andersson, the inaugural director and lead curator at the Rivers Institute, a New Orleans–rooted arts nonprofit. Rivers collaborated extensively with Girouard’s estate and the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances (CARA) to curate the retrospective “Tina Girouard: Sign-In,” presently showcased at CARA’s venue in New York City following its presentation at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.