The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Art Gallery will open the new year with three new exhibits featuring Arkansas female artists to watch and the works of faculty members of the UA Little Rock Department of Art and Design. 

The Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts presents their 5th exhibition of “Arkansas Women to Watch: Paper Routes.” The traveling exhibit will be at UA Little Rock from Jan. 29 to March 12 in the Brad Cushman Gallery on Level Two in the UA Little Rock Windgate Center of Art and Design.

Joli Livaudais, associate professor of photography at UA Little Rock, represented Arkansas in this highly regarded biennial “Women to Watch” exhibit in Washington, D.C. in 2020. The exhibit on campus features Livaudais along with fellow Arkansas women artists, including Kim Brewer, Linda Nguyen Lopez, and Suzannah Schreckhise. Allison Glenn of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art serves as the exhibit’s guest curator.

The exhibit will feature Livaudais’ installation, “All That I Love,” which consists of 1,500 origami paper beetles of varying sizes made of aluminum, pigment ink, resin, and mulberry paper that will be installed floor to ceiling by the artist.

“I am a professor of photography, so each of those beetles is folded from a photograph,” Livaudais said. “The idea is that each image captures a special moment of beauty, something that you care about deeply. That’s why the installation is called ‘All That I Love.’ Some of the images are recruited from other artists. When people send me images, it’s of things they love, like their kids.”

As a compliment to the traveling “Arkansas Women to Watch” exhibit, UA Little Rock will also host an exhibit of “Arkansas Women from the UA Little Rock Permanent Collection.” The exhibit will be open from Jan. 29 to March 12 in the Brad Cushman Gallery Annex in the Windgate Center.

The featured artists in the exhibit include Laura Carenbauer, Amy Edgington, Dorothy Hinson, Robyn Horn, Leslie Garrett, Latoya Hobbs, Delita Martin, Helen Phillips, Emily Shiell, Dominique Simons, Melissa Weiss, Renee Williams, and Sally A. Williams.

Additionally, the Faculty Biennial Exhibition, which features work created by the faculty in the UA Little Rock Department of Art and Design, will be held Jan. 24 to March 6 in the Ann Maners and Alex Pappas Gallery on Level One in the Windgate Center.

The artists in the Faculty Biennial Exhibition include Robert Bean, Win Bruhl, Kevin Cates, Tom Clifton, Jeremy Couch, Brad Cushman, Ben Dory, Dusty Higgins, Joli Livaudais, Sasha Mirzoyan, Peter Scheidt, Ricky Sikes, Chassidy Sirratt, Rachel Spencer, Michael Warrick, and Kensuke Yamada.

All of the exhibits will be available virtually through the exhibit website  at the UA Little Rock Art Gallery website.

The UA Little Rock Art Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Patrons may call or email to confirm a visit to campus to view the exhibitions. For more information, contact the main office at 501-916-3182 or email Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu.

The upper right photograph is one of the works displayed in the “Arkansas Women to Watch: Paper Routes,” exhibit: “Imperata Grassland” by Joli Livaudais.