January - February 2014 Events & Exhibitions
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.


Visiting Artist Lectures

Cole Closser
Lecture: Thursday, January 23, 5:30 to 7:00 pm in room 213, Fine Arts Building
Workshop: Friday, January 24, 12:00 to 2:00 pm
in the printmaking studio, Fine Arts Building

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.


GALLERY INFO:

Fine Arts Center Gallery
Cynthia Nourse Thompson ([email protected])
Curator and Director of Exhibitions
Department of Art
University of Arkansas, FNAR
Fayetteville, AR 72701
479-575-7987

sUgAR Gallery
Student Directors:
Aimee Odum ([email protected])
Jonathan Cromer ([email protected])
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.

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