Alex Leme, a UALR alumnus and former Donaghey Scholar, recently opened his new show, “Small Town: Portraits of a Disappearing America” at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City, Okla.

The exhibit is open through May 2.

Leme’s haunting photographs capture the mood of Cotton Plant, a once thriving small town in rural northeast Arkansas now filled with abandoned schools and crumbling buildings.

His images of the town’s landscapes and its people are said to “quietly question the future of a forgotten America,” according to writer Brandy McDonnell.

Leme–a multilingual Brazilian who first came to the U.S. as a stockbroker before his acceptance into the Donaghey Scholars program at UALR–is currently pursuing graduate studies in art history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

He is a curatorial fellow at the UM Amherst Museum of Contemporary Art.

In 2013, Leme became the first UALR Donaghey Scholar to earn the distinction of earning the prestigious Portz Prize by the National Collegiate Honors Council.