“Small Works on Paper”, the Arkansas Arts Council’s 21st Annual Competitive Exhibition, featuring 40 works by 39 artists from throughout the state, will open in the Fine Arts Center Gallery on November 3. A reception will be held on Sunday, November 9 from 2 – 4 pm in the Gallery.
Three artists from Northwest Arkansas have their work in this exhibition: Don House and Joanne Jones, both of Fayetteville, and Steven Wise of Rogers. The juror for the 2008 “Small Works on Paper” exhibition was Arlette Klaric, Curator of Art Exhibitions for the Mid-America Arts Alliance/ExhibitsUSA.
In addition to selecting the artwork for the exhibition, the juror named four purchase award winners:
Jeri Hills of Hot Springs, Benjamin Krain of Little Rock, Virmaire DePoyster of North Little Rock, and William M. McClanahan of England. These purchase award works become part of the Small Works on Paper permanent collection.
As the title of the exhibition implies, each work is limited in scale and media. Framed dimensions cannot exceed 24 x 24″; however “on paper” allows for a wide range of artistic mediums, including photography, printmaking, collage, drawing, painting and — in one example — simply handmade paper itself.
If you’ve had the opportunity to walk through the Fine Arts Center this month, you may have seen the drawings in the cases that run along the north-south corridor. Francesca Pastine’s “Iraqi Casualty Series” consists of 16 works on paper created from New York Times newspaper pages.
Using a very soft graphite pencil, Pastine obliterates all but selected images and text from the newspaper columns to focus attention on the stark reality of the current war in Iraq. Like the 19th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya’s “Disasters of War” series of prints, Pastine’s work illuminates the horrors of war, but within a rich — almost silver-leafed — texture.
Francesca Pastine lives and works in San Francisco. Her drawings will be on exhibit in the Fine Arts Center through October 31.
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Dr. Mohja Kahf, will read from her novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, as well as new work, in the Fine Arts Center Gallery on Wednesday, October 15 at 5:00 pm.
This event is free and open to the public.
A lecture by art educator Dr. Themina Kader (SUNY, NY) will be presented on Thursday, October 9 at 8:00 pm in Giffels Auditorium, 2nd floor of Old Main. This program is being sponsored by the Joy Pratt Markham Fund – Department of Art; an Artists & Concerts Committee Grant; the Art Educators Association, and the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies.
The lecture is free and open to the public.