UA Little Rock to Host Exhibition Featuring Valentine’s Work
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host a faculty exhibition featuring the work of Clark Valentine, assistant professor of drawing in the School of Art and Design, beginning Aug. 19.
The exhibition, “draw (verb): new work by Clark Valentine,” will be on display in the Ann Maners and Alex Pappas Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design, from Aug. 19 to Sept. 15. A reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 29, in the WIndgate Center. The exhibition and the reception are both free and open to the public.
“The exhibition will feature about a dozen drawings, white ink on black paper, that I’ve created since I started working at UA Little Rock last year,” Valentine said. “My mission is to cultivate a space for the viewer to feel the intimacy of the drawings. My work explores the phenomenological experience of mark making. In my drawings, each mark becomes a unique repetition of the mark before it. Over time, the disruptions of the hand change the marks, and the drawing takes itself in new directions. These variations of the marks become key compositional features. The process of drawing then becomes a balance between an active meditation of the mind and a passive response of the hand.”
The Marianne Oberg Foundation for Spiritual Art has also recognized Valentine for the work being displayed in the exhibition with a 2024 Spiritual Art Grant. He will be continuing this series throughout the year, and his work will be displayed during a virtual exhibit on ArtPlacer in December along with fellow Spiritual Art Grant recipients.
“Clark Valentine draws as a spiritual practice, engaging with the gesture of mark-making as a means of cultivating presence, contemplative awareness, and embodied consciousness,” the Marianne Oberg Foundation wrote of Valentine. “As a professor, Clark seeks to equip his students with tools for mindfulness, and to provide classes that can offer students the opportunity to grow in areas of sensitivity to the sacred, passion for community, and compassion for the self. MOFSA is excited to support this young artist, educator, and contemplative, and to follow the future evolution of his career.”
Valentine received his MFA from Colorado State University with a concentration in drawing. His work has been exhibited in museums, universities, and galleries on five continents, and widely throughout the United States.
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. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. The galleries are closed on university holidays.
For more information, contact Brian Young, UA Little Rock gallery director, at 501-916-5117 or byoung2@ualr.edu.
