{"id":879942,"date":"2026-10-12T18:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/879942\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T18:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:12:11","slug":"whos-been-painting-faces-on-rocks-down-by-french-quarter-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/879942\/","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s been painting faces on rocks down by French Quarter? | Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Audubon Nature Institute\u2019s Riverfront Park<\/a> opened this spring, it became possible to saunter along the mighty Mississippi, all the way from deep in the Bywater to the Riverwalk mall. If you haven\u2019t yet strolled this picturesque promenade, you certainly should.<\/p>\n

As you amble along the area adjacent to the French Quarter, be sure to cast your eyes downward to the countless broken gray rocks along the river\u2019s edge. There, a mysterious artist has provided an affable addition to the scenery.<\/p>\n

The jagged jumble of stones, known as rip rap, is meant to keep the river edge from washing away. Risking a twisted ankle or skinned knee, the artist has used a few dozen of the jagged stones as canvases, where they’ve painted faces, skulls, stars and other shapes.<\/p>\n

\"NO.rockart.adv\"<\/p>\n

In a Facebook video, the artist behind the ‘Spirit Stones of Nouvelle Orleans\u2019 described the two faces in the top left as ‘an alien and a native.’<\/p>\n

STAFF PHOTO BY DOUG MACCASH<\/p>\n

Good-natured graffiti\u00a0<\/p>\n

The colors of the faces and skulls are soft, not garish; the brushwork blunt yet neat. The images are so simplified that some are unrecognizable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fragmentary, mineralogical mural has some of the audacious outlaw vibe of graffiti. But it\u2019s clearly the good-natured sort of graffiti, meant as an embellishment, not a violation.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the faces and skulls are strange and out of place. Yet they seem to belong there among the tourists and buskers and passing freighters, just like the mad music of the Steamboat Natchez pipe organ.<\/p>\n

\"NO.rockart.adv\"<\/p>\n

In a Facebook video, the artist behind ‘The Spirit Stones of Nouvelle Orleans\u2019 said that he doesn’t invent the faces and skulls that he paints on the rocks along the Mississippi River bank at the edge of the French Quarter, he discovers them.<\/p>\n

STAFF PHOTO BY DOUG MACCASH<\/p>\n

The faces are already there<\/p>\n

A sign posted among the rip rap paintings reads \u201cThe Spirit Stones of Nouvelle Orleans.\u201d It is signed Phoen9X. A Google search of \u201cThe Spirit Stones of Nouvelle Orleans\u201d leads to a Facebook video<\/a> attributed to someone known as Hood Critic. In those videos, the artist describes his methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose faces that I bring out in the stones are already there,\u201d explains the artist, whose own face is never seen. As they speak, the artist points to a rock with a jagged edge that could be a human profile, with a dark patch that could be an eye.<\/p>\n

Above those natural features, they’ve added \u201chair, headgear and a plume,\u201d as if the face in the rock were wearing a costume. The artist explains that it\u2019s unnecessary to paint everything. Sometimes, they allow the raw stone surface to come through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might leave the rest of the stone as it was when I first met it,\u201d the artist said. \u201cYou might say \u2018He\u2019s not finished yet,\u2019 but actually I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the rip rap artist, studying the rough mosaic of river rocks is like looking for pictures in the clouds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe face is already there; I just came along to highlight it. I gave it a little makeup. I like to consider myself the rock\u2019s makeup artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artist promises there will be more painted rocks to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hood Critic has not yet responded to a direct message sent via Facebook.<\/p>\n

\"NO.rockart.adv\"<\/p>\n

‘The Spirit Stones of Nouvelle Orleans\u2019 are like a fragmented mural composed of faces, skulls and other images, painted on the rocks along the Mississippi river bank at the edge of the French Quarter by a mysterious artist, known only by pseudonyms.<\/p>\n

STAFF PHOTO BY DOUG MACCASH<\/p>\n

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A towering sculpture by one of the world\u2019s leading modernists will soon be placed in a premier location near the entrance to the New Orleans M\u2026<\/p>\n

Stacey Barbe stepped out onto her small concrete porch on Cadiz Street to smoke a cigarette one afternoon in April when a panicked person dash\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Audubon Nature Institute\u2019s Riverfront Park opened this spring, it became possible to saunter along the mighty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,8803],"class_list":["post-879942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-hardwall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}