Lana “Crude Things” Guerra is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, tattooist, noise musician, videographer, hairdresser, fashion designer, dollmaker, puppeteer and – in the past anyway – a circus performer.

Guerra moved to New Orleans permanently 10 years ago. She’s celebrating with a big show of paintings, prints and sculptures titled “Conjuring Madness” in the Art Conscious gallery on St. Claude Avenue in Arabi. The show is chock-full of strange cartoon animals and macabre people with big teeth and too many eyes.

Her garish, transient style is a reflection of her past, she said.

In the circus, Guerra was a living marionette. This was back in the early 2000s, when small traveling sideshow-style circuses were a thing — think glass-eaters, sword swallowers and fire dancers. Her body was pier

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