UA Little Rock to Host Exhibition Featuring Ceramics from Ginny Sims
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Gallery will host an exhibition featuring the ceramics of alumna Ginny Sims from June 17 to July 14.
The exhibition will be on display in the Ann Maners and Alex Pappas Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design. A reception will be held for the exhibition from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, June 27, in the Windgate Center.
Sims creates functional ceramics and ceramic sculptures that are whimsical and visually informed by 18th century ceramic surface designs and motifs.
“I create functional and sculptural objects that are highly narrative. For inspiration, I look to different moments in ceramic history and incorporate the cultural information I find there with present day social and political experiences,” Sims said in her artist statement. “Because the history of pottery in the west is divided between industrial capitalism and folk craft traditions, and its objects are so intimately involved with the body either in its creation or its use more than any other medium, I believe it has the ability to bring into dialogue aspects of the capitalist system, the body, and materiality in a palpable, straightforward way that other mediums cannot. Pottery is a reflective, invisible, critical and, for millennia, necessary material object of culture whose very existence is testament to the human being in their environment.”
A native of Little Rock, Sims now resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her family. She apprenticed with potter Mike Dodd in Somerset, England, and worked at potteries in Centola, Italy, and Isle of Iona, Scotland. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics from UA Little Rock and a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where she would later teach ceramics. Sims has participated in internships and residencies at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, Missouri, Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado, and the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.
Sims has become a well-known and highly collected ceramicist. She is a recipient of the Patricia Tillberg Hasselmo Fellowship from the University of Minnesota and the Jerome Foundation Study and Travel Grant from the Jerome Foundation, among other awards. Her work has been displayed in the United States and internationally. In 2023, Ofr. Paris published “Un Vie de Terre,” an artist book of her work spanning over 10 years.
All UA Little Rock galleries are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on weekends. The galleries are closed on university holidays.
For more information, contact Brian Young, gallery director at 501-916-5117 or byoung2@ualr.edu.
