Exhibitions: Eye Candy, Arkansas Times

UAMS art show reception today

Leslie Newell Peacock — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:51:00 -0500

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.

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Cefalo students to exhibit work

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:58:00 -0500

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.

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LaToya Hobbs "Uprising" at Hearne

Leslie Newell Peacock — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:46:05 -0500

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.

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Opening March 23: Robin Hazard-Bishop, Hans Feyerabend

Leslie Newell Peacock — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 10:00:00 -0500

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

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Saturday art: Cefalo at Gallery 26

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:17:00 -0500

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.

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Daniel Coston at Cantrell Gallery

Leslie Newell Peacock — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:48:00 -0600

"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.

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"Yosemite" opens tonight

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:49:07 -0600

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.

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"Women to Watch," in Pine Bluff

Leslie Newell Peacock — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:17:33 -0600

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:

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.

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, 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.

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Hunt Slonem paintings at ASU

Leslie Newell Peacock — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:02:11 -0600

It takes forever to get from Little Rock to Jonesboro, so here's a heads up on an exhibition that goes up March 7 at Arkansas State University: “Hunt Slonem: Painted Life,” paintings recently donated to the university's permanent collection.

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.

“Hunt Slonem: Painted Life” opens at Bradbury Gallery

“Hunt Slonem: Painted Life” will open Thursday, March 7 at 5 p.m. in the Bradbury Gallery, on the campus of Arkansas State University. This exhibition features the richly layered, beautifully painted work by this prolific artist.
All of the paintings have recently been donated to the ASU Permanent Collection of Art.

Well known for his magnificent paintings of flora and fauna, saints and celebrities, architecture and landscape, Slonem is perhaps best known for his depictions of tropical birds. This exhibition offers many excellent works of art in that category, one the artist describes as “exotica.”

Slonem, the man, is as extraordinary as is his work. His remarkable life began in Kittery, Maine. His father was a Navy officer, and so his family moved every few years. Growing up he lived in Hawaii, Virginia, Connecticut, California and Washington State. He also spent part of his high school years in Nicaragua as an exchange student. Travel, particularly to unusual, exotic and spiritual locations, has remained an important aspect of his life and work, inspiring and informing who he is and the art he creates.

Encouraged by his grandfather at a young age, Slonem developed the desire to be an artist. He states, “I was given paints as a child, and I wanted to be a painter from first grade onwards."

He spent his undergraduate years in a variety of locations, studying at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, the University of the Americas in San Andrés Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, and then graduating with a degree in painting and art history from Tulane University in New Orleans. He later took courses at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine where he met several influential artists from that time.

His connection to the south has remained another constant in his life. Since 1973 he has lived and worked in New York City, but continues to spend a week each month at one of his other homes. Two are in Louisiana - Albania Plantation, located on the Bayou Teche in St. Mary Parish, and Lakeside Plantation in Bachelor. The third is Cordt’s Mansion in upstate New York. These three beautifully restored homes are filled with his artwork and another passion in his life, his vast collection of antiques. His homes and his New York studios can be seen in the book, “Pleasure Palaces, The Art & Homes of Hunt Slonem” published by Power House Books, New York.

His artwork has been chronicled in several other books including, “The Worlds of Hunt Slonem” a comprehensive retrospective by Vendome Publishers with text by Dominique Nahas, “Hunt Slonem on the Bayou” a publication by the University of Louisiana Art Museum in Lafayette, and “Hunt Slonem, An Art Rich & Strange” published by Henry R. Abrams with text by Donald Kuspit.

Since 1977, Slonem has had more than 350 exhibitions at international galleries and museums. In 2013 alone his work is scheduled to be shown at eighteen locations such as the Galerie von Stechow in Frankfurt, the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, and the Kunsthalle Darmstadt, in Germany. Other venues include Serge Sorokko Gallery in San Francisco, Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal, Ruiz-Healy Art in San Antonio, St. Moritz Art Masters in Switzerland, Luis Noboa Naranjo Museum in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and DTR Modern in Boston, London, Palm Beach and Washington DC.

More than 100 museums include his work in their collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. During his decades-long career, he has received numerous awards such as the prestigious “Stars of Design” Award, a Greenshields Foundation Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, to name a few.

The exhibition runs through April 10. The Bradbury Gallery observes the ASU academic calendar and will be closed during spring break from Saturday, March 16 through Sunday March 24. Gallery hours are noon to 5pm Tuesday through Saturday and 2 to 5pm on Sunday and by appointment. The gallery is closed on Mondays. The exhibition and the reception are admission-free and open to the public. For more details contact the Bradbury Gallery at 870-972-3471, by email at bradburygallery@astate.edu, or visit the website, bradburygallery.com.

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"&*!?@$#" at Hearne Fine Art

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:08:31 -0600

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.

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Delita Martin at Boswell-Mourot

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:31:00 -0600

Printmaker Delita Martin, who made a splash on the Arkansas arts scene several years ago with her woodcuts and who has been a lecturer in art at UALR, is showing new work at Boswell-Mourot Fine Art. The exhibition, “Piecing Together,” opens tomorrow, Feb. 16; the artist will talk about what I think is her very fine work at 7 p.m. tomorrow night at a reception in her honor.

~~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.

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Arts Center's 'daughters' go to Fort Smith's RAM

Leslie Newell Peacock — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:10:02 -0600

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.

A members preview is from 5-7 p.m. Feb. 14; the show opens to the public the next day and will run through March 17.

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Art of the Osages at UALR's Sequoyah Center

Leslie Newell Peacock — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:27:02 -0600

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.

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Opening today: paintings by John Harlan Norris

Leslie Newell Peacock — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:06:50 -0600

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.

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Thornhill, Graupner at SAAC

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:18:35 -0600

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.

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Cushman's love story going to New York

Leslie Newell Peacock — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:21:50 -0600

Just in time for Valentine's Day, the "Let's Talk About Love" exhibition goes up at Printed Matter Inc. in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The show will feature artist-modified books, including one made by Brad Cushman, director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Fine Art Gallery. Cushman's book, "I Dare You ...," is a poem about his relationship with his partner.

The exhibition opens Feb. 14 and runs through March 14. It then travels to the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art in April and May.

Here's a link to a video Cushman made about his book.

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New at Laman: 'For All the World to See'

Leslie Newell Peacock — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:07:13 -0600

"For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights," an exhibition that tells the story of the fight for racial equality from the 1940s through the 1970s with photographs, television clips, art posters, and historic artifacts, opened today at Laman Public Library, 2801 Orange St. in North Little Rock.

The touring show was curated by Dr. Maurice Berger of The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and jointly organized by the center and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.

A news release explains the show's origin:

“...we had averted our eyes for far too long, turning away from the ugly reality facing us as a nation. Let the world see what I’ve seen.” - Mamie Till Bradley

In September 1955, shortly after fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. The mainstream media rejected the photograph as inappropriate for publication, but Bradley was able to turn to African-American periodicals for support. Asked why she would do this, Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes, the brutality of segregation, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of civil rights.

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights, a nationally touring exhibition from NEH on the Road, opens on January 28, at the William F. Laman Public Library System. Through a compelling assortment of photographs, television clips, art posters, and historic artifacts, the exhibition traces how images and media disseminated to the American public transformed the modern civil rights movement and jolted Americans, both black and white, out of a state of denial or complacency.

Visitors to the immersive display will explore dozens of compelling and persuasive visual images, including photographs from influential magazines, such as LIFE, JET, and EBONY; CBS news footage; and TV clips from The Ed Sullivan Show. Also included are civil rights-era objects that exemplify the range of negative and positive imagery—from Aunt Jemima syrup dispensers and 1930s produce advertisements to Jackie Robinson baseball ephemera and 1960s children’s toys with African American portraiture. For All the World to See is not a history of the civil rights movement, but rather an exploration of the vast number of potent images that influenced how Americans perceived race and the struggle for equality.

Simeon Wright, Emmett Till's cousin, who witnessed Till's abduction, will be in North Little Rock Thursday, Jan. 31, for an appearance at Starving Artist's "Tales from the South Dinner and a Show" talk. News release from Starving Artist on Wright on the jump.

The exhibit runs through March 16. Library hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat. and 1-5 p.m. Sun. Call 758-1720 for more information.

Civil Rights Tin Roof Project Featuring Simeon Wright

North Little Rock, AR. January 20, 2013—Civil Rights figure and author Simeon Wright will be the featured storyteller for a very special Tales from the South Tin Roof Project on Thursday evening, January 31, 2013. The live taping of the radio series will be at Starving Artist Cafe in the Argenta Arts District, Downtown North Little Rock. Live music by Finger Food with Steve Davison and Micky Rigby. Doors open at 5:00 p.m., dinner and drinks are served 5:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m.

On August 28, 1955, during the Jim Crow era, Chicago teen Emmett Till (14) was kidnapped, tortured, and killed for whistling at a White woman in the segregated South while visiting his family in Money, Mississippi. Emmett's younger cousin, Simeon Wright, who was 12, watched as two men abducted the boy. Those responsible were never convicted. Emmett’s mother insisted on an open casket so that the world would see the travesty. A photo of Emmett’s mutilated face was published, and an African American woman named Rosa Parks was outraged by it. Two weeks later, she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus. Till's murder became a symbol of and a rallying point for the Civil Rights Movement, and is widely credited with galvanizing it. Till’s family recently donated the casket in which he was buried to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It took more than 50 years for Simeon Wright to talk about his cousin's death. He shared his pain in his book Simeon's Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till (Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, January 2010, ages 12 & up). It is a coming-of-age memoir and the very first eyewitness account of the kidnapping that adds a vital contribution to America's civil rights history.

Simeon Wright is a popular public speaker at schools, churches, and cultural institutions throughout the country. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. This show is made possible by William F. Laman Public Library in conjuction with the National Endowment for the Humanities' traveling exhibit "For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights."

Now in its 8th year, Tales from the South is recorded during “Dinner and a Show” at Starving Artist Café. The show airs locally on KUAR Thursdays at 7pm and is syndicated by World Radio Network (WRN), a satellite radio distribution service, available to more than 130 million listeners worldwide via WRN Europe, WRN Asia, and WRN Africa. Shows are also distributed nationwide to multiple American public radio stations via PRX (Public Radio Exchange) and heard on NPR Now Satellite Radio. Podcasts are available on ITunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, the NPR website, the KUAR website, the PRX website, and the Tales from the South website.

Tickets are $7.50 for the show, plus the cost of dinner and drinks. Seating is very limited.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.talesfromthesouth.com

This show will air on KUAR (89.1) in Central Arkansas on Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 7pm.

Tales from the South is presented by the Argenta Arts Foundation and Temenos Publishing Company, with AY Magazine as the official media sponsor, publishing a story each month in the magazine. Additional support provided by the North Little Rock Visitor’s Bureau, The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow, and The Oxford American Magazine. This show is sponsored by William F. Laman Public Library.

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2013 Delta Small Prints: UPDATE

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:37:00 -0600

Arkansas State University's annual "Delta National Small Prints Exhibition" has opened at the Bradbury Gallery in the Fowler Center. This year's show features 55 prints from 46 artists from across the country. The juried exhibition, created by emeritus art professor Evan Lindquist, is in its 18th year; this year the show is dedicated to Don A. Tilton, a former vice president of the Jonesboro university and a long-time supporter of the Bradbury Gallery.

Just in over the etransom: Photographer John Bridges won the President's Award with his work, "Carnival."

Juror for this year's show was Anne Coffin, founder and director of International Print Center New York (IPCNY). In a news release, Coffin commented on her process of choosing the work for the Delta show:

“My selections process was pragmatic yet intuitive. I began by running quickly through the submissions to get a sense of the scope of the project; even at that point in the process several prints jumped out, demanding attention. I began a ‘maybe file’; the second and third times through, many more asked for another look. Many required multiple viewings as I wanted to be sure my reading of the print was fair. Soon, 90 had migrated out of the “big” file to form my initial selections. Already I regretted some of those that had been left behind, and went back to retrieve them. Reluctantly, I made some cuts, coming up with a final list, singling out prints that, for me, exemplified competence or mastery of technique in harmony with a commitment to a concept or idea that drove the project through to completion.

"Toward the end of the process, I looked also for dialogues between prints, pairings that I thought would strengthen the exhibition. I hope the show will convey the excitement I felt as I reviewed the work, looking closely at each of the submissions, sensing the adventure of creating a work of art with the fascinating array of tools available to artists in the medium of printmaking.”

The exhibition runs through Feb. 20. Bradbury Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, and by appointment.

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"Exodus of Dreams": Cuban artists at Boswell-Mourot

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:00:10 -0600

Boswell-Mourot Fine Art opens a new exhibit tomorrow, "Exodus of Dreams — Cuba to America," works by Ernesto Capdevila, Eloy Perera, Maydelina Lezcano and Lourdes Porrata," and will host a reception from 6-9 p.m.

Gallery owners Kyle Boswell and Jon Mourot, who lived in Florida before returning to Arkansas and who also operate a gallery in Miami, have strong connections with the Cuban and art community; this show promises to bring fresh themes and styles to the gallery-goers here.

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Reception for Taimur Cleary at UALR

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:07:22 -0600

UALR is hosting an artist's reception from 5-7 p.m tonight for Taimur Cleary, whose painting exhibit "Surface Space (Sundial Face)" opened last week in Gallery II of the Fine Arts Center.

Cleary has been artist-in-residence at UALR since September 2011 and has exhibited national and internationally. He also taught at The Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. He holds a BA in art from Miami University in Ohio and an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. The work in the exhibition concerns perceptions of landscape, the quality of light and more. You can see more examples of his work at his website.

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Reception for UALR print exhibit is Friday

Leslie Newell Peacock — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:24:14 -0600

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host a reception for "Collecting Prints (1997-2012): Works from UALR Permanent Collection," 20th century and contemporary work collected over the past 15 years, from 5-7 p.m. Jan. 25. The exhibition honors the tenure of Art Department chair Win Bruhl, who is retiring in June. The show will feature diverse methods of printmaking, including a Gustave Baumann woodcut ("Singing Woods," 1926); a William Bailey aquatint ("Viale," 2002), etchings jointly created by Mamma Andersson and Jockum Nordström ("Faces," 2010), a Julie Speed polymer gravure ("Ad Referendum II," 2005) and a Tom Blackwell screen print ("Triumph Trumpet," 1981).

The show opened Jan. 14 and will run through March 11.

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Chakaia Booker, Kara Walker and more at UA

Leslie Newell Peacock — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:01:38 -0600

Works by major African-American artists from the collection of Darrell Walker, the former Razorback basketball star and NBA player, went on exhibit Monday at the University of Arkansas's Fine Arts Center.

"Employing Voice, Embracing Agency: Contemporary African American Artists" includes works by Radcliffe Bailey, Chakaia Booker, Michael Ray Charles, Willie Cole, Wardell Milan, Demetrius Oliver, Xaviera Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas and Kara Walker.

From the UA press release:

... Walker is bravely committed in expanding his catalogue with noted cutting-edge artists who address conceptions of history, culture, and identity in previously unforeseen lights laden with diversity. With each acquisition Walker is attracted to the manners in which the artist challenges the viewer in a re-contextualized society.

The show includes a video by Kara Walker that I happened to catch at the National Gallery in London in October, "8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker," in which Walker uses her silhouette puppets to comment on sex (and getting screwed) and slavery, grim and beautiful at the same time.

You can see a video of Cole talking about his work "Man, Spirit, Mask" at the Brooks Museum here (couldn't embed for some reason). You'll be able to hear Charles talk about his work at a reception at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 18, in the Stella Boyle Auditorium in the Fine Arts Building. The show runs through Feb. 28.

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"Gurdjieff Tradition in Art" at Gallery 26

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:04:23 -0600

"1.13.77: Influences of the Gurdjieff Tradition in Art," artwork influenced by the spiritual teachings of George I. Gurdjieff, will be presented by the Gurdjieff Foundation of Arkansas from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at Gallery 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd., the 135th anniversary of Gurdjieff's birth.

Paul Reynard, Andre Enard, Vala Hafsted Enard, William Segal, Christopher Fremantle and others in the show were teachers and followers of Gurdjieff, known as the creator of the "fourth way" of self-enlightenment; works were curated by the group in Little Rock. The show also includes pieces by contemporary regional artists with ties to the Gurdjieff Foundation, some from private collections and others on loan from New York and Chicago.

A press release from the Little Rock foundation asks the question, "Does an artist’s lifetime of spiritual work show through the strokes of his or her brush?"

Photographer Ansel Adams once said, “How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world.” A cornerstone of Gurdjieff’s teaching is the need to become more deeply aware, of our inner and outer surroundings—a quest that resonates for many artists. Each of the artists in “1.13.77” had a thirst for such deeper meaning, and each one found a resonance in Gurdjieff’s teachings. Yet each remained an individual with his or her own artistic vision. The artwork collected here represents the work of those whose commitment to both art and Gurdjieff’s teaching spanned as much as six decades. Several of these artists knew Gurdjieff personally, and all were eventually tasked with passing the tradition to others in many cities across the United States and Mexico.

For the many artists and writers who clustered around him, Gurdjieff’s ideas on attention were a challenge and a call to find something more real within themselves. Andre Enard, a New York painter who mentored the work of Arkansas’s Gurdjieff Foundation for several decades, once said: “If it is true … that attention is the breathing of God, a divine energy — and I feel that more and more — if you can carry that through a painting or music, people will receive it … That is my aim, in a way. That is sacred art. I don’t pretend that I am able to do that, but I feel something.”

Gallery talks will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday.

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AAC faculty exhibit opens Friday

Leslie Newell Peacock — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:46:43 -0600

The "Museum School Faculty Exhibition: Past and Present," an exhibition that will feature work in a variety of media by current faculty as well as work from the permanent collection by previous faculty, opens tomorrow, Jan. 11, at the Arkansas Arts Center.

The show is the third in a series of exhibits celebrating the Arts Center's 50th anniversary. The Arts Center first started offering arts classes in 1960, and when the new facility opened in 1963, the Arts Center's Museum School had a faculty of 13 artists teaching 32 classes to 300 students. (I was one of them!)

The museum school now has 50 artists teaching more than 80 classes to more than 600 students each quarter.

There will be a members' reception at 6-8 p.m. Jan. 17, which will also celebrate the opening of the 55th annual Delta Exhibition.

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"Small Works on Paper" opens in El Dorado

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:06:01 -0600

The 2013 "Small Works on Paper" exhibition of the Arkansas Arts Council brings 37 works of art by 35 artists to the South Arkansas Arts Center in El Dorado today. Anne Austin Pearce, an associate professor of art and director of the Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., was juror, selecting the winning entries (none bigger than 24-by-24 inches) from 300 submissions.

The arts center will hold an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 5; the show runs through Jan. 29 before embarking on a tour of nine other Arkansas cities. Some artists will be on hand to talk at tomorrow's reception.

Included in the show this year are works by Artist Registry artists Darrell Adams, John Ahlen, Lynn Bell, Tony Baker, John Bridges, Angela Davis Johnson, J. Kathleen Keefe, Kathy Lindsey, Ray Ogar, Jon S. Rogers, George Wittenberg, Emily Wood and Terry Wright of Little Rock, J.P. Bell and Steven Jones of Fort Smith; Sheila Cantrell of Batesville; Victor Chalfant, Don House, Sam King, Don Lee and Laverne Nelson of Fayetteville; Lin Chen of Charleston; L.S. Eldridge of Rogers; Thad Flenniken of Royal; Pat Langewis of Hot Springs Village; Brittany Madalone of Greenbrier; Scott Mattson of Conway; Rachel R. Muller of North Little Rock; Marc E. Palmer of Mountain View; Caley Pennington of Prescott; Lynn Reinbolt of Searcy; Tom Richard of Monticello; Mitchell Skinner of Tucker, Jason Stark of Osceola and Rachel Trusty of Russellville. Chalfant, Flenniken, Madalone, Ogar, Stark, Trusty and Wood received purchase awards totaling nearly $2,000. Go to the Arts Council website for a list of names that includes links to their works.

The Arts Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The show travels Feb. 2 to Lyon College in Batesville.

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