“Roux,” an exhibition of traditional and non-traditional printmaking, opens Monday, Aug. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 2, in UALR’s Gallery III in the Fine Arts Building. The exhibition was curated by Danielle Burns for the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

Four of the artists whose work is included in the exhibit – Delita Martin, Lovie Olivia, Rabea Ballin, Ann ‘Sole Sister’ Johnson – will participate in a panel discussion at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23, at Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.

The name of the exhibit refers to the mixture of flour and fat, cooked over low heat that is the base of soups and sauces, and is indispensable for the creation of gumbo, etouffee, and bechamel.

“Great-Grandma made a good roux. Or did she?  This and other similar questions fascinate these visual artists and are also …the fuel that burns their creativity for the body of work being produced for ‘Roux,’” said Brad Cushman, director of the UALR Galleries.

No good soup starts without a good roux, and like roux is the base of traditional American sauces, the African American matrilineal story is an integral base to American culture more specifically the base of these artists’ own families.

“The women artists in the exhibition are detailing their identity through their interpretations of the information provided about their fore-mothers in hopes that the missing fragments will produce something magical,” he said.

The artists believe that within these vacancies reside the ghostly mystique to an already rich roux. Like recipes and stories are inherited, altered and passed down from generation to generation by granny-to-auntie-to daughter-to cousin-to-sister, so are traditional craft techniques, beauty codes, symbols, beliefs, rituals and practices.

The women offer a contemporary take on the handmade and the art of storytelling through printmaking, both rational and nontraditional. In the interest of honoring their ancestors, they bend, stir, mix, and alter that that has been given to them.

The  UALR Galleries are free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Monday through Friday. During the Labor Day weekend, the Galleries will  be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept 3; from 2 to 5 p.m.  Sunday, Sept. 4, and closed on university holidays.