December 2013 - January 2014 Events & Exhibitions
MFA Student Exhibit

December 13, 2013

Reception: Friday, December 13, 5 - 8 pm

Location: sUgAR,1East Center, Basement level, University of Arkansas Downtown Campus in Downtown Fayetteville

 

sUgAR,The University of Arkansas Student Art Gallery, is pleased to present a group exhibition by first- and second-year graduate students pursuing their Masters of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art. The gallery, located at 1 East Center on the downtown Fayetteville square, will open to the public on Friday, December 13th with a reception celebrating our MFA candidates from 5-8pm.  

 

This is an opportunity for the public to view the creative research conducted by MFA candidates pursuing a professional career in art, which encompasses diverse approaches to a wide range of media including ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and visual design. Exhibiting students include Ashley Byers, Jonathan Cromer, Drew Divilbiss, Chris Drobnock, Bryanna Jaramillo, Aimee Odum, Todd Pentico, and Elena Volkova.

 

The gallery is an interdepartmental exhibition space featuring the visual research of students, faculty, and visiting lecturers from the Department of Art and Fay Jones School of Architecture representing the Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Interior Design.

 

sUgAR is made possible by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Art, the Fay Jones School of Architecture, and the University of Arkansas' Facilities Management. sUgAR's new wood laminate floor is generously supported in part by Meeks Lumber of Fayetteville.

 

Winter Holiday Sale and Open Studio Event  

December 14, 2013 from 12pm-7pm in the ceramics studio located at 326 Eastern Ave

The University of Arkansas Department of Art and the Ceramics Area are pleased to announce the first annual Winter Holiday Sale and Open Studio Event. This one-day event will take place December 14, 2013 from 12pm-7pm in the ceramics studio located at 326 Eastern Ave.  

 

This event will include an exhibition highlighting the semester's most exceptional work, from beginning-level student assignments to the independent works of advanced undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, a sale of handmade pottery by the students and faculty will also be held. Hot soup and beverages will be available with the purchase of bowls and cups.

 

This is a unique opportunity for the public to view diverse works during various stages of the artistic process as well as the ceramics' studio facilities and activities. Proceeds of this sale will assist ceramics students in travel to the National Council on the Education for the Ceramic Arts, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2014. Please join us. All events are free and open to the public.

 

 

 

Senior Capstone Exhibit

Reception: Thursday, December 19, 6-8 pm
Location: sUgAR, 1 East Square Plaza, Basement level, University of Arkansas Downtown Campus in Downtown Fayetteville 

 

The Department of Art is pleased to present a series of solo exhibitions by senior capstone students working in a variety of media and applications in painting, photography and printmaking.

 

The exhibition includes painting and printmaking students under the direction of Stephanie Pierce, and photography students under the direction of Michael Peven.

 

Exhibitions on view:

Asphyxia, Paintings by Ashley Roller   
Structure in the presence of perturbations, Paintings by Ashley Lindsey  

Contingent, Paintings by Joe Smiley
July Skies, Photographs by Daniele Sexton

Tarantella, Paintings by Colleen Poplawski

Human Objects and Placeless Spaces, Paintings by Jonathan Suit

Things get strange in the house when you're away, Paintings by Mia Buonaiuto

London, 2013, Photographs by Kevin Fitzgerald

After Image, Monoprints by Hannah Waddell  

 

Resonance: Audible Silence in Portraiture 
Curated by Cynthia Nourse Thompson
October 23 - December 4, 2013

Resonance: Audible Silence in Portraiture
October 23 - December 4, 2013
Curated by Cynthia Nourse Thompson
Petah Coyne
Gail Deery
Anne-Karin Furunes
Portia Munson
Bill Viola
 
Resonance: Audible Silence in Portraiture, a visceral portrait of devotion and beauty, challenges viewers to confront the deepest of human emotions that reside within the panorama of mortality. Immersed in dissolution, a collection of international artists present a haunting visual dialogue which is strikingly raw and at the surface of our emotional armature. The penetrating presence of grief and loss compounded by images, which while beautiful are laden with sorrow, regret and transcendency, beckon the viewer to pause and reflect on the frailty of our own existence and the manner in which one acknowledges life and death, faith and beauty. Each artist distinctively addresses themes of vulnerability, bereavement and mortality. Although the artists in Resonance confront us with fearful depths lurking beneath our exterior, their images beckon us to fathom its darkness and arise to find strength, clarity and the recognition that without this palpable dimness light would not exist. Within silence there are moments of great beauty and certainty.



BASIL ALKAZZI
An Odyssey of Dreams: A Decade of Paintings 2003-2012
Curated by Judith Brodsky
facilitated for the University by Cynthia Nourse Thompson
University of Arkansas
Anne Kittrell Gallery
November 4 - December 6, 2013
 
"One can regard Alkazzi's odyssey of dreams as a journey from darkness to light ... For Alkazzi, the aim of art is spiritual enlightenment."-Art critic Donald Kuspit

This latest body of work by internationally renowned British artist Basil Alkazzi, will be on view in a travelling exhibition that will exhibit at university art venues and museums throughout the Northeast, Southwest and Midwest starting in August 2013 and throughout 2014. The exhibition, and an accompanying book published by Scala that will be released worldwide in February 2014, present Alkazzi's beautiful and brilliantly colored large-scale gouaches on hand-made paper that are mystical abstract renderings of nature reflecting the artist's deep engagement in the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of painting throughout his career. In An Odyssey of Dreams, the viewer is transported on a magical mystery tour of a sensual world of soaring skyscapes, enchanting landscapes, and verdant flora and vegetation that are revelatory and uplifting.
 
The Curator of the exhibition is Judith K. Brodsky, Distinguished Professor Emirita, Rutgers University.  During her tenure as co-founder and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers with Ferris Olin, she organized and curated many notable exhibitions, including a major retrospective of Faith Ringgold's work: Declaration of Independence; 50 Years of Art by Faith Ringgold; the group show How American Women Artists Invented Postmodernism: 1970-1975; and most recently, the critically acclaimed multi-site exhibition and catalogue The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society.

Visiting Artist Lectures

Cole Closser
Cancelled due to weather. Will reschedule at a later date.

Closser is a Missouri cartoonist and graduate of the MFA program at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. He enjoys reading books with funny pictures, watching old cartoons, and wrestling alligators. Cole's comics are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or in the shop.
Little Tommy Lost: Book One, coming this fall from Koyama Press. Ask your local bookseller to carry it. Currently available for pre-order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine online retailers.



Stephanie Pierce 
Lecture: Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 5:30pm in room 213 of FNAR

Pierce received her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, BFA from The Art Institute of Boston, and she attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art. Sourcing common objects, Pierce's perceptually based paintings reveal passages of change as light and viewpoints shift over time and the everyday resides in a state of flux. Her work is represented by Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects in New York and Alpha Gallery in Boston. Her work has been exhibited nationally including The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Asheville Art Museum, NC; Space Gallery, Portland, Art Chicago, Argazzi Art, CT, and has been published in the New Yorker Magazine. In 2012 she was awarded an Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Her work is included in the collections of Joan and Roger Sonnabend, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Boston Public Library. Stephanie lives and works in Fayetteville, AR where she teaches at the University of Arkansas.



The Thrill Came Slowly by Lesley Dill, Published by
Peter Kruty Editions, NY
Peter Kruty 
Lecture: Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 5:30pm in room 213
Letterpress Workshop: Thursday, February 6  from 11am-1:45pm in printmaking studio of FNAR

Peter Kruty Editions is Peter Kruty and Sayre Gaydos, two master letterpress printers who have pooled their talents in letterpress printing and printmaking to form, along with their staff,  one of the most versatile and well-known fine art and commercial letterpress shops in the United States. Peter Kruty was trained at the University of Alabama, Graduate Book Arts program and Sayre Gaydos is a printmaker from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. They teach letterpress printing workshops nationally and are much sought after by artists and designers for fine art collaborations. The studio is located in the historic Sunset Park, Brooklyn. A recent sampling of their diverse clientele includes ad agency SS+K, print publisher Harland and Weaver, October and Parkett magazines. Their work can be viewed at http://www.peterkrutyeditions.com/who.html


 
Marat Paransky
Lecture: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 5:30pm in room 213 of FNAR

Paransky will be exhibiting recent work addressing issues surrounding nuclear power plant disasters at The Bottle Rocket Gallery February 5 through March 1, 2014. Paransky received a Master of Fine Art in Visual Arts from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA and a Bachelor of Fine Art in Drawing and Printmaking + Bachelor of art in Political Science with honors from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.



Susan Lichtman
Lecture: Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 5:30pm in room 213

Susan Lichtman studied art at Brown University and received an MFA in Painting from Yale School of Art. A recipient of awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, she was recently given the Leonard Bernstein Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University where she is Associate Professor of Fine Arts. Her oil and gouache paintings have been exhibited throughout the northeastern US and Europe, most recently at the Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia, the Chazen Gallery in Providence and in Montecastello di Vibbio in Italy, where she was Senior Artist in Residence at the International School in 2012.  In 2013 she was visiting artist at the Hoffberger Graduate School of the Maryland Art Institute, the University of Washington in Seattle, the MassArt/Art NewEngland Program in Bennington,VT and the University of North Carolina, Asheville. She lives and paints in Rehoboth, MA.





Cynthia Nourse Thompson
Lecture: Thursday, February 27, 2014 at 5:30pm
in room 213 of FNAR

Thompson's work contains strong religious undertones and has often been described as "Catholic" in nature and aesthetic- clean, pure, and ordered. At the same time, many of the surfaces and materials used in her work simulate flesh in order to evoke the body, an alluring and seductive association of great significance. Using the body as the site of personal investigation, the physical manifestations of denial, shame, and oppression are explored and moreover issues surrounding the female body are examined. In particular, Thompson shares her own experiences as a young woman raised in the religious South.  She is interested in addressing her own concerns with beauty, desire, vulnerability and imperfection. In her newly produced body of work, she continues this investigation yet the focus has become not only that of the aesthetic but that of the process- technique, pattern, place and content, and the historical made contemporary.

Thompson is currently Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Additionally, she is Associate Professor teaching printmaking and book arts. In June of 2014, Thompson will begin as Program Director for the Book Arts/Printmaking and MFA Studio Arts programs at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She will also serve as Associate Professor and teach within these programs. Thompson previously served for twelve years as Professor of Book and Paper Arts at Memphis College of Art and the Chair of the Fine Arts Department for one year. Thompson has also been visiting faculty at University of Georgia's study abroad program in Cortona, Italy teaching both papermaking and book arts as well as faculty at the prestigious Santa Reparata International School of Art teaching book arts and printmaking. Thompson received her BFA in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. In addition to teaching and curating, previously Thompson worked at Dieu Donne Papermill, Harlan & Weaver Intaglio, Inc. and the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, now the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions. Her work can be viewed at www.cynthia-nourse-thompson.com.

Fine Arts Center Gallery Spring 2014 Exhibitions

New Faculty Exhibition: 
Stephanie Pierce and Cynthia Nourse Thompson
January 21 - February 23, 2014
Reception: Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 5pm in the Fine Arts Center Gallery

Artist Lectures: Stephanie Pierce on Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 5:30 pm in room 213 FNAR
Cynthia Nourse Thompson on Thursday, February 27, 2014 at 5:30 pm in room 213 FNAR

The Fine Arts Center Gallery is pleased to present work by new faculty, Assistant Professor Stephanie Pierce and Associate Professor Cynthia Nourse Thompson. Professor Pierce teaches painting in the Department of Art and Professor Thompson is the Curator for the Fine Arts Center Gallery and teaches printmaking as well as book arts.

Pierce received her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, BFA from The Art Institute of Boston, and she attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art. Sourcing common objects, Pierce's perceptually based paintings reveal passages of change as light and viewpoints shift over time and the everyday resides in a state of flux. Her painting seeks an intersection between perception and abstraction using the phenomenon of light, space, and form as personal metaphor. Working from perception, Pierce wishes to convey a sense of the visual as it is unfolding into forms and space that are at once material and immaterial. The accumulation of observed moments stand as fragments of color, light, and location, as they change with the progression of each day. Her work is represented by Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects in New York and Alpha Gallery in Boston and has been exhibited nationally including The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Asheville Art Museum, NC; Space Gallery, Portland, and Art Chicago. In 2012 she was awarded an Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Her work is included in the collections of Joan and Roger Sonnabend, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Boston Public Library.

Thompson received her BFA in printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Sharing her own experiences as a young woman raised in the religious South,  Thompson's work addresses her own concerns with beauty, desire, vulnerability and imperfection. In her newly produced body of work, she continues this investigation yet the focus has become not only that of the aesthetic but that of the process- technique, pattern, place and content, and the historical made contemporary.

Thompson previously served for twelve years as Professor of Book and Paper Arts at Memphis College of Art and the Chair of the Fine Arts Department for one year. Thompson was visiting faculty at University of Georgia's study abroad program in Cortona, Italy teaching both papermaking and book arts as well as faculty at the prestigious Santa Reparata International School of Art teaching book arts and printmaking. In addition to teaching and curating, previously Thompson worked at Dieu Donne Papermill, Harlan & Weaver Intaglio, Inc. of NYC and the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, now the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions. In June of 2014, Thompson will be the Director for the Book Arts/Printmaking and MFA Studio Arts programs at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She will also serve as Associate Professor and teach within these programs.

GALLERY INFO:

Fine Arts Center Gallery
Cynthia Nourse Thompson (cynthiat@uark.edu)
Curator and Director of Exhibitions
Department of Art
University of Arkansas, FNAR
Fayetteville, AR 72701
479-575-7987

sUgAR Gallery
Student Directors:
Aimee Odum (amodum@uark.edu)
Jonathan Cromer (jbcromer@uark.edu)
More info: 812-887-6522 or 870-403-4649
1 East Center, Basement level, University of Arkansas Downtown Campus in Downtown Fayetteville
Gallery Hours: Thursday - Saturdays, 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Fine Arts Center Gallery and sUgAR Gallery events are free and open to the public.

Thank you for your interest in and support for the Department of Art's free public programming if you would like to make a gift of support to the department, gallery programming, or underwrite our lecture series please contact the J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences or call 479-575-3712.

STAY CONNECTED

Facebook Fine Arts Center Gallery    Facebook   sUgAR Gallery