"Images from the South," an exhibit from the Arkansas Arts Center Collection, will be the featured exhibition at University of the Ozarks for the month of February.
Among the artwork from the "Images of the South" exhibit that will be featured at Ozarks is Judith Betts’ "Mardi Gras."
The exhibit is part of the University’s Artist of the Month Series and will run from Feb. 5-26 in the Stephens Gallery, which is located in the Walton Fine Arts Center. Admission to the gallery is free and the exhibit is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
"Images from the South" is an exhibition of art from Arkansas and the immediate region that explores the artists’ connection to the land of their birth. The use of detail, especially small and seemingly insignificant, is central to understanding the story imbedded in the images. Artists of note, such as Benny Andrews and Romare Bearden, recall the South of their past as they moved to larger American cities. Still others, such as Carroll Cloar, Mike Disfarmer, Louis Freund, and Andrew Kilgore, gained national fame, yet remain regional institutions.
The exhibition focuses on characters, customs, and the important role that the land had in the construction of this shared cultural memory. In addition to artists formally educated in various artistic techniques, the exhibition includes self-taught, or outsider art. Contemporary artists from the area, perhaps subconsciously, still absorb the influence of their surroundings into their work. The artists included in this exhibition give voice to a collective memory, mythology, and culture that supersedes time and place - proving that being Southern truly is a state of mind.
Arkansas Arts Center programs are supported in part by: the City of Little Rock; the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau; the City of North Little Rock and the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Among the artwork from the "Images of the South" exhibit that will be featured at Ozarks is Louis Freund’s "Community Life in the Ozarks."
Topics: Exhibit