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UA Little Rock to open three virtual art galleries Aug. 24

Liz Smith's 2013 Ewer Set.
Liz Smith's 2013 Ewer Set.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will release three virtual exhibits for art lovers to enjoy this fall. 

The three exhibits include contemporary British studio ceramics, landscape images of country vistas, and items from the university’s permanent collection. They will be on display from Aug. 24 to Oct. 11.

The first exhibit, “Contemporary British Studio Ceramics (Part 2),” features works from the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection and will be on display in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design. It contains examples of 20th century studio ceramics. The majority of these works were gifts to the Arkansas Arts Center by Diane and Sanford “Sandy” Besser and range from functional wares—bowls and teapots—to purely sculptural forms.

The exhibition illustrates a rich variety of techniques and forms ranging from slab-building, hand-building, and wheel throwing, to neriage and nerikomi, traditional Japanese methods using “marbleized” clay and similar to the 17th- and 18th-century “agatewares” of England. There is also a diverse range of finishes represented, from glazed and slip-inlaid to burnished surfaces.

Accompanying the British ceramics in the Cushman Gallery in the Installation Annex will be objects from the UA Little Rock Permanent Art Collection. Represented in this exhibition are acquisitions of ceramic and sculpted objects referencing functional ceramic objects such as teapots and vessels. Additionally, the collection includes a unique chair made out of Adobe mud that mimics a famous mid-century modern Eames-molded plywood chair.

Louis Freund's "Yucatan, Tulum" is a mixed media drawing on paper about Mayan ruins from the sea.
Louis Freund’s “Yucatan, Tulum” is a mixed media drawing on paper depicting Mayan ruins from the sea.

Next, the exhibit, “Landscapes,” features a variety of media, including photographs, drawings, and watercolors. The exhibit is on display in the Small Gallery in the Windgate Center. Visual depth, distance, and space can be compared with such a disparate group of images. Certain artworks can have an abstracted look through the artist’s use of light and shadow.

“None of the photographs were manipulated using digital software, so you can’t consider the direct application of media, but how the photographer chose to capture or represent color, light, shadow, and texture can be directly compared to how a painter, drawer, or printmaker chose to use their media in the creation of color, light, shadow, and texture,” said Nathan Larson, assistant curator of the UA Little Rock Permanent Art Collection who curated “Landscapes.”

The UA Little Rock Art Gallery is open by appointment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. After Labor Day, the gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The virtual exhibits can be found at http://www.artexhibitionsualr.org/ beginning Aug. 24. For more information, contact Art Gallery Director Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu or 501-916-3182.