The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will open three new exhibits in October in the Windgate Center of Art and Design featuring the charcoal drawings by Gonzalo Fuenmayor, photography by Simen Johan, and an installation annex by Anaïs Dassé.

A reception for the three artists will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, in the Windgate Center. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, contact Art Gallery Director Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu or 501-916-5103. 

Gonzalo Fuenmayor 

Gonzalo Fuenmayor, a Columbian artist residing in Miami, will hold an exhibit from Oct. 5 to Nov. 15 in the Small Gallery in the UA Little Rock Windgate Center of Art and Design. 

Fuenmayor’s monumental charcoal drawings of palm trees, waterslides, and vision testing micromachines examine notions of the exotic and the collision of culture in the tropical landscapes of Florida. The works are on loan from the Dot Fifty Gallery in Miami.

Fuenmayor was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia. He received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2000 with a minor in art education. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2004. While earning his master’s degree, he earned the prestigious Traveling Fellowship and traveled to Leticia, Colombia. 

Simen Johan 

The photography of Simen Johan will be on display from Oct. 12 to Dec. 2 in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design. Johan will present a guest lecture at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, in the Windgate Center Room 101. 

Known for his psychologically charged depictions of the natural world, Johan has expanded his creative universe to include ceramic sculptures, celestial bodies, and detailed compositions that oscillate between bright light and dark shadows.  

The photographer originally drew attention in the early 1990s by merging digital manipulation with traditional darkroom techniques. Since then, he has been developing a hybrid form of image-making that integrates candidly photographed animals and landscapes with a compositional structuring and conceptual intent typically associated with painting and cinema. 

Johan travels near and far to photograph his source material. He finds inspiration anywhere from the local zoo to the jungles of Costa Rica or the lava fields of Iceland. Countless hours are then spent assembling disparate images into a unifying whole as he edits, composes and populates each mise-en-scène. 

The artwork is on loan from the collection of 21C Museum Hotel, Yossi Milo Gallery, and a private collector from Princeton, N.J. 

Anaïs Dassé

Artist Anaïs Dassé will create an installation annex titled “Saint George” that will be on display in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design from Oct. 12 to Dec. 2.

Dassé, represented by Boswell Mourot Gallery in Little Rock, creates fictitious tableaux, picturing primitive feral youth, as ethnographic material. She playfully imagines things in the context of a larger fictional culture. Dassé creates hierarchies of events and entices viewers into a narrative journey with children and young adults in the forests of Arkansas and Texas. 

She began her career as a scientific illustrator in France. After relocating to Arkansas, she began to address the subjects of religious beliefs, guns, and civilization. 

The upper right photo contains Simen Johah’s 2013 photograph, “Red Monkeys,” that will be on display in the Windgate Center of Art and Design.