- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Artist Meena Khalili to Give Sept. 26 Talk about Louisville exhibit

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 21:53:12 +0000

Artist Meena Khalili will give a lecture on her exhibit, “New in LOU, Drawn Daily,” on Thursday, Sept. 26 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The lecture will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Windgate Center of Art and Design Room 101. The exhibit is a record of the one year Khalili spent living in Louisville, Kentucky. She captures the life of the city through 365 drawings in pen, ink, and collage processes in small accordion fold books. “As an artist and designer, I am inclined to organize, archive, and record,” said Khalili, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina. “The city of Louisville is a living organism behaving similarly to most other small-to-mid-sized cities across America. Some of the businesses archived in the project were closed down by the project’s final day, while some spaces revitalized and opened with new life. Even the unique signage of the city speaks to Louisville’s collective vibrant eclecticism.” As a method of accountability, Khalili shared a daily drawing through the Instagram account @newinlu365. Collage is used throughout this work to develop a narrative between text and image for the viewer. “In the��‘New in LOU’��series, I find this most appropriate as the city itself is a collage of sounds, images, billboards, historical sites, and churches,” she said. “Thus, a ‘text’-ural history is incorporated into the process of image creation. Most of the papers used are found in antique shops in the Louisville metro area, and many of them date from the 1800s to the mid-20^th��century, a time of developing industry and growth of the river city’s economy.” As a first-generation Iranian American, Khalili is fascinated with geography, impermanence, history, and translation. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration and a Master of Fine Arts in visual communication and graphic design from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. Khalili’s work has been shown at the Type Director’s Club of New York, Chicago Design Museum, and galleries throughout North America, Canada, China, Indonesia, Croatia, Australia, and Moscow, with illustrations and book art in permanent collections at the VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives, the Omni Hotel Louisville, and recently inducted artwork in the Library of Congress. Khalili’s artwork will be on display in the Small Gallery at the Windgate Center of Art and Design through Sept. 29. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The lecture is funded by a grant from the Windgate Foundation. For more information, contact Art Gallery Director Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu or 501-916-5103.

New ��Vlog��ý Little Rock photography club holds first exhibit

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 18:06:16 +0000

University of Arkansas at Little Rock graduates and students have started a new photography club and are displaying their skills at the club’s first photo exhibit at the.�� The exhibit, will run Aug. 11 until Oct. 8. A reception for the artists will be held during the Second Friday Art Walk from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 11, at Historic Arkansas Museum, 200 E. Third St. in Little Rock. Participating artists include Benjamin Deaton, Megan Douglas, Jessica Frazier, Robert Harpool, Trinity Kai, Rayna Mackey, Adrian Quintanar, Nathaniel Roe, Alecia Walls-Barton, Craig Wynn, and Dylan Yarbrough. Rayna Mackey, a 2017 ��Vlog��ý Little Rock graduate and photographer, said alumni and students were inspired to form the club to share their love of fine arts photography. “The name ‘No-Type’ came about because, as a group, no one specific type of photography is used with mediums ranging from digital to analog to alternative process photography,” Mackey said. In the exhibit, No-Type members portray the theme of identity through their own definitions and artistic photography styles. “Identity is conceived from personal circumstances and conditions a person is born into,” Mackey said. “These factors can shape how an individual aligns themselves with reality. Throughout life, experiences can morph an individual’s beliefs and the perceptions of an individual, including how others perceive them.” ��

��Vlog��ý Little Rock art professor and alumnus create sculpture commemorating 200th anniversary of Louisiana Purchase Survey

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 14:38:10 +0000

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock art professor and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock alumnus have created a sculpture commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase Survey. The sculpture, “Straight Lines on a Round World,” lies in front of the Statehouse Convention Center in downtown Little Rock. The sculpture will be dedicated during a ceremony at 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 20, at the atrium at the convention center. It is the culmination of a partnership between ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Professor Michael Warrick and Aaron Hussey, a ��Vlog��ý Little Rock alumnus and sculptor from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that is many years in the making. The sculpture is 18 feet high, 12 feet wide, and 13 feet deep. It is made of stainless steel, cast bronze, tempered glass, and concrete and has four main elements that have a special representation of the Louisiana Purchase Survey. The sculpture’s main feature is a compass face with an etching of the Louisiana Purchase. Behind the compass face lies a dome with patterns representing latitude and longitude lines. The sculpture’s base represents the Earth. The 5-foot long cast bronze plumb bob represents an important builders’ tool that has been used for more than 4,000 years. The final component simulates the brass leg of a survey tripod and is used to support the sculpture’s compass. The two worked together on the, which was dedicated in 2001 to honor the Little Rock Nine and the spirit of Central High School. “We are both interested in history and creating public art that commemorates history,” Warrick said. Many Americans are familiar with the Lewis and Clark Expedition that explored the western United States from 1804 to 1806. However, Hussey said he was interested in promoting the story of the lesser known survey that began in Arkansas. “There was the more famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, but most people don’t even know there was more than one survey of the Louisiana Purchase,” said Hussey, who earned a master’s degree in art from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 1998. The Louisiana Purchase Survey sculpture is a gift to the city commissioned by the Committee for Louisiana Purchase Survey Bicentennial Monument, headed by John Gill and Sharon Priest. The committee has raised money for the project the past 12 years.

Third time’s a charm

For Warrick and Hussey, the third time really was the charm that allowed them to create a sculpture they have been trying to make for more than a decade. Calls for sculpture proposals were first sent out in 2004. Warrick and Hussey entered and were named semifinalists in 2005, but the scope of the project changed. When a second call for proposals was sent out in 2007, the duo won the option to create the sculpture. However, the project was postponed until the committee raised the $190,000 needed to pay for the sculpture. Warrick and Hussey began work on the sculpture in 2015. In August 2016, Hussey’s work on the sculpture was delayed due to the historic flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the artist lives and works. Hussey’s home was damaged by the flood waters, and his house is still under repairs. Through the years, the project changed in size and scope. Originally, the sculpture was meant to be “two surveyors in cast bronze and cast concrete surveying with a bird overlooking their work,” Warrick said. The cast bronze figures would represent Prospect Robbins and Joseph Brown, the two surveyors President James Madison commissioned to conduct the survey of the lands west of the Mississippi River. The survey began Oct. 27, 1815, in Arkansas.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

Artist Meena Khalili to Give Sept. 26 Talk about Louisville exhibit

New ����Vlog��ý Little Rock photography club holds first exhibit

����Vlog��ý Little Rock art professor and alumnus create sculpture commemorating 200th anniversary of Louisiana Purchase Survey

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

New ��Vlog��ý Little Rock photography club holds first exhibit

��Vlog��ý Little Rock art professor and alumnus create sculpture commemorating 200th anniversary of Louisiana Purchase Survey