A ‘visual ballad in relief’ is how Neal Harrington describes his series of linoleum prints that make up the “Hard Travelin’ Man” exhibition, featured in the Fine Arts Center hallway cases Nov 1 – 16, 2007. Harrington, who lives in Russellville, Arkansas and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Arkansas Tech University, credits his childhood fascination with comic books as the inspiration for creating this sequential story in art.
“Hard Travelin’ Man” is the story of a traveling musician “who risks everything to live the American Dream by seeking fame and fortune in forgotten country sides inhabited by forgotten peoples.” The print series also demonstrates Harrington’s interest in American Roots music such as folk, bluegrass and blues. This exhibition is presented as part of the University of Arkansas and the Walton Arts Center’s collaborative venture, the MyAmerica project, which celebrates Southern Music and Heritage.
For more information about MyAmerica, check out this website:
hhttp://www.waltonartscenter.org/the_myamerica_project
An exhibition of 35 vintage silver gelatin prints by Ralph Eugene Meatyard will be presented in the Fine Arts Center Gallery from October 8 – November 2, 2007. This traveling exhibition originated at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY and is co-sponsored by Light Impressions Corporation. The rare prints in this exhibition were generously donated to the Visual Studies Workshop Research Center Collection by the photographer’s son, Christopher Meatyard.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born in Normal Illinois in 1925. In 1950 he took a job as an optician in Lexington, Kentucky and lived there until his death in 1972. He was one of a handful of dedicated photographers whose work during the 1950s and 1960s extended the look and meaning of creative photography. Working in opposition to the prevailing styles of photojournalism, in which the photograph was limited to a single narrative meaning, Meatyard used the photographic image to explore an unseen universe of emotions. His unique work, often organized into lyrical sequences or series, “suggests the mysterious within the mundane and the life-force within the inanimate.”