• "Scarlett's Sun Hat," by Julie Woods

The Psychiatric Research Institute of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences will host a reception from 5-6:30 p.m. today, May 15, for the artists whose works were selected in a juried competition.

The event, held in conjunction with National Mental Health Month, is to recognized the value of art in healing. All of the works, submitted by professional artists and students and now a part of UAMS' permanent collection, will be displayed on the walls of PRI's new women's inpatient unit.

Winning a prize of $1,500 for first place was Julie Woods, a senior at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, for her oil and color pencil work "Scarlett's Sun Hat," seen above.

• "Laura," by Mary Nancy Henry

If you pay attention to art at all, you know Stephen Cefalo and his figurative paintings. His classic technique adds a sort of timelessness to the work, much of it depictions of full-figured nudes and babes, and it's a method he's passed on to students at the Arkansas Arts Center's Museum School, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and in private lessons over the past seven years. They'll be showing their work at the Terry House Community Gallery, 7th and Rock streets, starting Sunday, in an exhibition called “Learning to See: Students of Stephen Cefalo.” There will be a reception from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. opening day, and the show will run through June 2.

The show was organized by the artists; Cefalo was juror, choosing 46 works. Artists whose works are in the show include Ash Barker, Nancy Spargo DeLamar, Jennifer "Emile" Freeman, Jameson Gresham, Jordan Lynn Gribble, Pamela R. Hawkins, M.N. Henry, Logan Hunter, Meghan Jones, Greg Lahti, Megan A. Lewis, Kayla Martin, Grant Mason, Carmien Penny, Jennifer Perren, Lora Peter, Eli Ramsay and Jason A. Smith.

From Cefalo's online biography:

I was born in the hometown of Albrecht Dürer on the birthday of Winslow Homer, Charles Le Brun, and Franz Von Stuck, so I already had my work cut out for me. My dad was a sergeant in the U.S. Army from Philadelphia, and my mom was raised on a cattle farm in Kentucky. When I was six my parents separated, and we moved to Indiana. My two sisters and I were raised in the historic river town of Newburgh by our mother who worked full-time at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Evansville. I had trouble in school, but found comfort in drawing and was enchanted by the lonesome moans of the barges at night. My aunt Marilyn gave me oil painting lessons at twelve, and my mom bought me books on figure drawing and supplies when she could.

During my undergraduate studies at the former Savannah Campus of the School of Visual Arts I found mentors in Jeff Markowsky and Anthony Palliser. When SVA Savannah closed its doors in 1997, I was already married with my first child, and moved to the main campus in New York. There I studied with one of my heroes, Steven Assael, and Max Ginsburg.

Cefalo was also an assistant painter for Jeff Koons. Yep, the big guys have artists painting for them.

• Hobbs' "Chelsea" (2012)

Printmaker LaToya Hobbs, known for her terrific woodcut- and linoleum block-print portraiture of beautiful African American women, is exhibiting work at Hearne Fine Art, 1001 Wright Ave., through June 8.

With "Beautiful Uprising," Hobbs hopes to "challenge past notions of identity concerning the black female body, deconstruct them, and resurrect an ideology grounded in positivity," she says in her artist's statement. The manner in which she works is symbolic of the goal of her work, a mimesis she expresses beautifully here:

My primary medium of choice is relief printmaking. Symbolically this serves two purposes. The act of cutting away from my matrix (the surface of the wood or linoleum block) to shape an image is synonymous with the way one has to cut away negative ideologies imposed on them by others to expose or embrace their true selves. In this same sense women of African descent have had to cut away the negative stereotypes imposed on them by external forces to express their true identity. Secondly, the historic nature of printmaking stems out of protest and communication. This is significant to my work because I seek to dismantle negative stereotypes based on Euro-centric standards of beauty and communicate how past influences, expectations, and personal preferences resonate with women of color in the 21st century and are expressed through the canvas of their bodies.

Hobbs, who will receive her master's of fine arts degree from Purdue University next month, will attend 2nd Friday Art Night receptions from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. May 17 at Hearne and will present two talks the following day, May 18, one about her work in the show at 11 a.m. and with a panel speaking on "The Relevance of Hair" at 1:30 p.m.

As a student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she learned printmaking from Aj Smith, Hobbs was the student of printmaker mentored by Delita Martin. Martin will be demonstrating her work Saturday, April 27, at the Thea Arts Festival in Argenta, to be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• Hazard-Bishop's "Reflecting"

Boswell-Mourot Fine Art opens an exhibition today of pastels by Robin Hazard-Bishop and paintings by Hans Feyerabend in a show called "Looking Out." There will a reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The gallery is at 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.; the show runs through April 13.

"Reflecting" by Arkansas artist Robin Hazard-Bishop

• "Starhead" by Stephen Cefalo

Stephen Cefalo, painter of lush, masterly narrative portraits, opens a new show Saturday at Gallery 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd. Here's his statement about the new works in "The World is Flat":

Although modern string theorists tell us that there are at least ten dimensions, we can only experience the first four: height, width, depth, and time. In terms of perception by the senses, the other six are not there. Eighteenth Century philosopher George Berkeley went so far as to deny material substance altogether, claiming “esse est percipi” or “to be is to be perceived”. In other words, without a perceiver nothing can exist. A painter is not a knower, but a perceiver, and lives in a world of perception. The painter’s world is not that of science, but of magic and alchemy. Although he knows from science books and satellite photos that the world is round, he experiences it as flat. The world ends where his experiences end, and sea monsters may still lurk in the margins.

To paint in an age of rapid-fire imagery is the ultimate act of anachronism. In the “information age” we are bombarded with advertisements and opinions, but aesthetic experience has no such agenda, and does not tell the viewer what to think. A painting is a free space in which life can still be mysterious, mystical, and full of wonder. It is unstifled by science, politics, dogma, and the great tyranny of fashion. Its only limitations are the rules of form, design, and the edges of the canvas. While the world of technology is rapidly and exponentially changing and growing, painting has scarcely changed since the wall paintings on the caves of Southern France, and will categorically remain unchanged.

This is not a refutation of progress, but a celebration of perception, and of the unknown. Retreat with me for a moment back to the cave, and let’s wonder at the dancing shadows on the wall.

The artist's reception is 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. with music by the Rolling Blackouts.

• Coston's "Bouquet of Pipes"

"STRUCTURES II," new acrylics by Daniel Coston of Fayetteville, opens Friday, March 8, at Cantrell Gallery, 8206 Cantrell. Coston, who is documenting with an artist's eye the fading life of the Delta, will be at the gallery reception 6-8 p.m. Friday. The show runs through April 27.

• "Half Dome"

Don't forget: Gallery 360 opens "Yosemite: Images From the Past" tonight, photographs made from glass slides made by an anonymous photographer in the early 1920s in the park. Tim O'Brien of Conway, who bought the slides from a California estate, worked with John Blackney of Visual Database Services to make prints from the slides. The reception will run from 6-10 p.m.

Gallery 360 is at 900 S. Rodney Parham Road, south of where I-630, Mississippi Avenue and Rodney Parham converge. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sat. Hours are 10 to 4:30 M - F, 10 to 2 Sat. The show runs through March 30th.

• Hartfield's "Bullet Proof"

I have not been able to get down to see the "Women to Watch 2013" exhibition of the Arkansas committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts at the Arts and Science Center in Pine Bluff, but I do have some images to share, and for now that will have to do. (When Max Brantley returns from his jaunt on the other side of the planet and reassumes his post at the Arkansas Blog I will return to Eye Candy with a vengeance.)

The annual exhibition this year features textile works by Barbara Cade of Hot Springs; Louise M. Halsey of Little Rock; Jennifer Libby Fay (formerly of Rogers), Jane Hartfield of Fort Smith and Deborah Kuster of Conway. Curator for the exhibition was Caroline S. Brown.

A little bio on each exhibiting artist:

• Barbara Cade's "Patterns"

Cade, who has a studio in Hot Springs that hosts an open house each year, is showing felted and mixed media works. She has a master's degree from the University of Washington at Seattle and was the winner of a NMWA annual scholarship in 2004.

Halsey was chosen by the National Museum of Women in the Arts to show her work in the exhibition High Fiber-Women to Watch 2012 in Washington, D.C., which went down Jan. 6. Halsey has been weaving since 1971 and earned a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College in Vermont. She creates tapestries.

• Jennifer Libby Fay's "Leaf Dance"

Libby Fay’s “textile paintings” explore the "relationship between art, nature and spirituality," according to the NMWA release. She has done commissioned work for J.B. Hunt, the late Hjem Restaurant in Fayetteville and the Highlands Oncology Group Benton County Clinic and has exhibited around the country.

Hartfield’s hand-dyed and painted quilts explore color relationships, NMWA says. She exhibits at the Regional Art Museum of Fort Smith and has work in corporate and private collections.

• Deborah Kuster's "Living off of the Land"

Deborah Kuster, a professor of art at the University of Central Arkansas, "creates art quilts whose creation goes beyond the loom." Besides graduate degrees in art, she holds a doctorate in art education from the University of North Texas.

The exhibition runs through April 13 and will travel to Fort Smith Regional Arts Museum May 2-July 7, the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville July 18-Aug. 17, the Stephens Gallery at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville from Sept. 4-Oct. 22 4, the Fine Arts Center Gallery at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro Nov. 5-29 and the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies Dec. 13-Feb. 28, 2014.

• "Hutch" by Hunt Slonem

A news release from the Bradbury Gallery says Slonem, who lives in New York but has homes in Louisiana, has work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

The donor was not identified. The show runs through April 10 in the Bradbury Gallery in the Fowler Center.

News release on the jump.

The full name of the exhibition of shoe polish and ink artwork by self-taught artist Frank Frazier currently at Hearne Fine Art is: "This &*!?@$# Struggle: History Unfolds."

Frazier, who hails from Harlem but lives and works in Dallas, will give a talk at Hearne at 11 a.m. March 9, the morning after a 2nd Friday Art Night reception for the show (5-8 p.m.) and Afternoon Artist Walk-Through (1:30 p.m.).

The image of Frazier's artwork above is from the Tom Joyner Foundation.

• Delita Martin, "Evelyn (EH veh lin): Her Mother's Heart"

Martin's work was recently exhibited at Hearne Fine Art as part of the V.I.T.A.L. Collective show “Celebrating Cultures, Liberating Minds.” CORRECTION: Sorry! Big mind skid there. That was Martin's student, La Toya Hobbs.

A statement from her website:

Delita’s current work deals with reconstructing identity. By piecing together the signs, symbols, and language found in what could be called everyday life from slavery through modern times, my goal is to create images as a visual language to tell the story of women that hav lived but often have been marginalized. Throughout history, the marginalization of Black women has led to problematic representations of their roles within community and family structures, as well as problematic visual and textual representations; thus making it difficult to document their positive contributions within collective systems.

Through her work, Martin has created a series ofportraits that expounds upon the role of African American women within the community and other social structures. Within her work she uses a series of domestic objects as a visual vocabulary. These objects show a connection to daily life and provide a visual language that gives voice to the women represented.

The new Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, which is exhibiting “The Secrets of the Mona Lisa,” a scientific exploration of Leonardo DaVinci's famed painting, opens a companion exhibit Feb. 15: "Mona Lisa's Daughters."

"Daughters" features drawings, oils, charcoals, silkscreens, pastels and ink on paper from the permanent collection of the Arkansas Arts Center. The works span from the 16th century to the 21st; among the 31 artists represented are Milton Avery, Will Barnett, Chuck Close, Naomi Fisher, Norman Rockwell, Byron Browne and Alex Katz.

A press release from the RAM says the exhibit will show how contemporary artists "challenged the old conventions of female portraiture."

Rather than merely being portrayed as an object of desire, newer female portrait subjects meditated, read, listened to music, drew, or expressed emotion. Regardless how far artists have strayed from western portrait traditions, the long and storied history of this genre invests their works with an engaging sense of mystery. The depths of Mona Lisa's gaze have never been fully revealed, nor have the questions posed by her artistic daughters been fully answered.

• Norman Akers' "Uncertain Paradise"

The J.W. Wiggins Gallery of the Sequoyah National Research Center is exhibiting the "Contemporary Art of the Osages," work from the collection of Native American art of Dr. J.W. Wiggins.

The show runs through March 28. The gallery is open weekdays in the SNRC, University Plaza, Suite 500, but you can arrange to the see the exhibition on weekends and evenings by calling 569-8336.

• Gina Grey's "Peyote Clan Woman"

• John Harlan Norris' "Opponent"

Arkansas State University professor John Harlan Norris says his work "explores the possibilities and limitations of our daily occupations at a time in which we frequently change jobs, balance multiple roles and cannot easily delineate between private and public life.”

You can see what he means at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, which today opens an exhibition of 19 of his portraits, "Occupants," in Gallery III of the Fine Arts Center. Norris' faces are wrapped in symbols of the things that define us — flags for the diplomat, a hog's nose and football helmet — with a little bric-a-brac thrown in.

Norris will gave a gallery talk at 3 p.m. Feb. 28. The show runs through March 21.

Dan Thornhill goes "Beyond Reality" in a show that opened Feb. 1 in the Merkle gallery of the South Arkansas Arts Center, exhibiting mixed media on paper and canvas. He and potter Zach Graupner, who is exhibiting his wheel-thrown vases, tea pots and ceramics in the Price gallery, will attend a reception in their honor at the Arts Center from 6-8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9.