UA Little Rock to Welcome Metalsmith as Featured Artist

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host metalsmith artist Funlola Coker as the artWORKS series featured artist for the Spring 2023 semester.

As part of the artWORKS series, Coker will give a lecture, which is free and open to the public, at 6 p.m. Feb. 17 in Room 101 at the Windgate Center of Art and Design. Coker will also lead a free public two-day experimental enameling workshop on Feb. 17-18 in the Windgate Center.

Coker, a metalsmith from Lagos, Nigeria, is fascinated by history, the evolution of culture, and storytelling. Coker creates narrative sculptures that call on nostalgic memories and moments of the mundane that is held dear.

Coker has taught at notable craft institutions such as Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Coker’s work has been exhibited at Brooklyn Metalworks, the Fuller Craft Museum, Tone Gallery in Memphis, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

In 2020, Coker received the Arts Memphis Arts Accelerator grant and was a 2022 Thayer Fellowship recipient from the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government. Coker holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Memphis College of Art and an MFA in Metal from the State University of New York at New Paltz.

The UA Little Rock artWORKS Artist Workshop Series provides a learning community dedicated to creativity and growth through the making and understanding of the visual arts. The artWORKS series provides a hands-on learning experience for local, regional, and national artists and artisans, students, and art educators.

For more information on these events, contact Windgate Artist-in-Residence in Metals Lydia Martin at lmartin3@ualr.edu.