Uplifting Exhibition Opens at Bradbury Art Museum
JONESBORO – Bradbury Art Museum on the campus of Arkansas State University will host a new exhibition, “Everything is Going to be Alright.” The public is invited to this fun, interactive, and beautiful show which opens Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m.
In five of the museum’s six galleries individual artists will present their work. Included are New Orleanian Courtney Egan; Charley Friedman, who is based out of both Lincoln, Neb., and Brooklyn, N.Y.; Illinois artist Barbara F. Kendrick; Anne Austin Pearce from Kansas City; and Andy Warhol who died in 1987.
The last gallery will feature a group of artists whose work incorporates the playful theme of doodling.
Solo Exhibitions
In the newly named Stella Boyle Smith Gallery, elegant and exquisite video projections by Egan will be shown. Through the use of technology she manipulates delicate and luscious digital imagery to create stunning botanical projections. Egan states, “These realistic, yet highly-constructed composites place the viewer in between one’s memories of the natural world, and a new, mediated experience of a plant or flower.”
Friedman’s video performance “One Hour Smile” is the second in this series of solo exhibitions. As the title promises the piece is a recording of the artist’s happy face, held sometimes painfully, for a full 60 minutes. This nearly Sisyphean feat is a perfect foil for the seemingly endless stream of disturbing events that confront us on an almost daily basis.
Kendrick’s powerful, thought-provoking yet humorous digital collages will be presented in Kays Gallery. This octogenarian artist denounces our society’s obsession with youth by overlaying images of her own aging skin onto those of classic marble sculpture. She boldly states, “Women my age are nearly invisible in a youth-oriented, anti-aging culture. We do not want to see bodily evidence of deterioration and decay. I confront these fears as I clothe marble busts in the skin we would prefer to erase or veil.” This exhibition is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Kendrick will visit BAM and discuss her work with the public on Wednesday, March 28, at 3 p.m.
Large-scale, vibrant paintings by Pearce will grace BAM’s main gallery. Like Egan, she too derives her imagery from nature and also responds to the technological explosion of our time. Her approach is to embrace what she sees as the “real” and “tactile” rather than the “virtual” in her representations.
The final solo exhibition is by the famed artist Andy Warhol, best known for his Pop Art screenprints and paintings of iconic people and imagery. In this work, which was first shown in 1966, he challenged what was then the norm - that art should be seen from a distance rather than experienced through touch. This playful project consists of helium and air-inflated balloons that hover a few feet from the floor allowing viewers to move through the space and physically interact with the floating objects.
Doodles
The Vaughn Gallery will host a group show of works on paper selected from across the country. On display are drawings and paintings by Texans Diana Lopez and Adam Ross along with Curt Bradbury Jr. of Little Rock, Nina Bovasso from New York City and Los Angeles artist David S. Rubin. These scribbles or doodles made idly or otherwise, remind us of our innate need for and the power of mark-making and by extension visual communication.
Featured artist Rubin states, “My drawings are automatic, in that they begin with no specific plan or idea. Mimicking the way life forms develop in general, one gesture leads to the next and on to the next.”
The exhibition, the artists’ talks and the reception are admission-free and open to the public.
BAM Hours and Schedule
BAM will be closed March 17-26 in observance of the university’s spring break. The museum will re-open on Tuesday, March 27, and the exhibition will continue through April 12.
BAM hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, noon to 7 p.m. on Thursday, noon to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, and by appointment. The museum is closed on Monday and when the university is not in session. For additional information please contact the museum at (870) 972-3471.
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