Stephen Thorne: I’m Every Woman
December 8, 2016 – January 5, 2017
Opening: Friday, Dec 9, 8-11pm featuring music by Helen Gillet

Who she was and why she was: For the fourth year in a row, the artfully inclined International House hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana presents MAGDALENA, an exhibition of provocative, evocative photographs that celebrates female mysticism and explores, with great reverence, the life and legacy of Mary Magdalene. This Holiday season features the powerful images of Canadian-born, award-winning photographer, journalist, editor and lecturer Stephen Thorne. Thorne’s passionate vocation has taken him from war-torn Afghanistan to capturing iconic moments with celebrities, sports figures, and royals, and his images and text have been featured in Time, Weekly World News, International Journal, and more.

For Christmas, it being the last of seven local rituals observed annually at International House, the hotel explores the immortal mystique of an essential character in Christianity and Judaism, Mary Magdalene, a woman whose magnetism endures over millennia. Through the medium of photography, MAGDALENA finds contemporary expression through Thorne’s vivid lens. MAGDALENA 2016 presents sixteen captivating portraits of women from around the world, an ensemble on view together for the first time.

Several of Thorne’s photographs have been acquired by the hotel and will join works from previous MAGDALENA exhibitions, gracing the walls of the hotel’s MAGDALENA Gallery, a permanent collection and 2nd floor public space – “a tribute to extraordinary women and the divine feminine.”

From its establishment 18 years ago, International House has incorporated the work of artists and artisan-makers in its space, weaving not only authentic local ritual but a creative culture of invention into its soul. As New Orleans’ premier boutique hotel, it honors creativity and dedicates considerable resources to not only collecting and exhibiting art but serving as prism and hub for discourse on topics that matter.

MAGDALENA is art that engages the eye, challenges the mind, touches the heart and fuels the soul. International House invites you to this compelling gallery-style exhibit, to meet the artist and two other very special guests on December 8, 2016. The exhibit will remain up through January 5, 2017 in the hotel’s lobby, coinciding with the city’s annual PhotoNOLA gathering.