Friday, November 25, 2011

Art for the Holidays

Art for the Holidays
December’s First Thursday at the Fayetteville Underground

On First Thursday, December 1st, join the artists of the Fayetteville Underground to celebrate the opening of our third annual Art for the Holidays exhibition. Find affordable works of original art created by the Fayetteville Underground Studio artists, E Street artists, as well as many of the visiting artists that have shown at the Underground in the past. Giving the gift of original art has never been easier as all our art will be cash and carry throughout the month of December. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 12 to 7 p.m. and Saturday 10 to 5 p.m. Additionally, there will be extended shopping hours on Friday, December 2, until 10 p.m., and on Sunday, December 4 from 11 a.m. to 5p.m.

In conjunction with First Thursday, from 5 to 8 p.m., a fundraiser for the Fayetteville Art Alliance will be hosted by local artists, Kathy Thompson and Cindy Arsaga at their studio, located at 3 E. Mountain Street. Community members are invited to stop by for food, drinks, and to share in the holiday spirit, as they raise funds for our new community art organization.

This will be the final exhibition at the current Fayetteville Underground location. The community is encouraged to stay involved with the organization, as the artists move to their new home and resurface as the Fayetteville Art Alliance in January 2012. To learn more about the new organization and how you can help please visit www.morphtheorg.com

Monday, October 31, 2011

First Thursday November: Trigos, Idlet, Hudson, Sims

Join us First Thursday November 3rd from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!
 
Luciano Trigo's paintings will be featured in the Revolver. In the Vault, Dana Idlet will present her latest work since her experience on Flores Island in the Azores. The work of Chad Sims will be on display in the Hive gallery. The E Street Gallery will feature functional stoneware by Gailen Hudson. 


 
Luciano Trigos 
Progressive Hemofiction
Revolver Gallery
 The eye stops in front of the Hemofiction painting. Observes shapes, colors, and structure, it self mesmerized. Desires to comprehend, looking back from a previous time, worn out. Attempts to enter lateral invented reality through a known door, but uses the incorrect key. Attentive eye, but conditioned. Curious eye. Was it going to speak proudly of its knowledge? What do I see? – asks the eye in continuous excitement. Hemofictive shapes that escape like smarmy fishes. Luciano Trigos's pictorial sense refuses to respond positively to custom. I am eye, should be able to see- the observer says with a certain rancorous air in his usual gaze.

The eye that claims or wishes to admire the unwanted requires tutelage. The disciple eye submits itself to surprising design and, does it look again? No, in reality it touches, it creates visual hands that reach out to caress the canvas and wooden frames. The eye, reeducated, gropes hemofictive forms. Colors and perspectives come to it in an open manner, vibrating. Wanting to retrocede, the eye wishes to perceive the pictorial dimension in an instant, but the painting's reality divides, it sets diversity of centers at the sight, it seems the painting does not desire to be a painting, and in contact with the touching eye it becomes restless, aggressive, as if it were being watched through a microscope. What I see transforms to pure beauty. The eye insists, inserts, accomplishes at last to detach an apparent totality, but discovers itself walking in an aesthetic surface right away, it is a wayfarer that steps, barefoot, in fragments of another reality attached to the first. Then, annoyed, decides to focus again.
 
Luciano Trigos does not recreate images, he produces Dynamic Abstract Chromatics. The artist sets off in observing, where personal creativity is the center. He sets the eye in first place and completes what could be spaces full of aesthetic cells that reproduce in unusual senses.
  
The eye roams with its own unrefined resources: shape, movement, color. The cosmos is by no means, the way Luciano Trigos paints it, it is worse- the artist's aesthetics tries to make up for God's faults or in some way, adhere to nature's constant birth giving. Luciano Trigos's paintings are product of lateral, germane vision. Plastic cells are born, they grow and reproduce inside original, abstract form and at the same time, follow a kind of autonomous development. These spurious Hemofictous beings are displayed towards objectivization, they wish to be touched, they desire to enter as fact to the three dimensional world and offer concrete possibilities to the receptor.

 


Dana Idlet 
Gravity
Vault Gallery
This work comes from the growth and experiences I had on Flores island in the Azores. After coming across a photograph of a place I had never seen, I followed my intuition and spent the last six months in the middle of the Atlantic. I shared a tiny village with 200 other people between waterfall striped mountains and a rugged coastline shaped by lava flow, always aware of the sea and its shifting horizon. The people I spent my time with there are now my brothers and sisters.

There is a simplicity to the pieces I have produced, but they come from a very deep and honest place. The island's gentle pace, lack of material clutter and some indefinable quality of lightness gave birth to these images. On the island I had an overwhelming feeling of heaviness and being grounded. I had lived with my head in the clouds, floating around, fighting to touch down. In this otherworldly place rich with contradictions I found my gravity.

 
Gailen Hudson
Tea Time

The art of pottery has been the transformation of the raw clay into the vessel form serving the daily utilitarian needs of the people. It has always been a three dimensional surface of expression and decoration in the living space. The tea pot is the refinement of the vessel as a server of refreshment noted as a time of relaxation and reflection - a rest from the day's labors - either as a private moment or as a social gathering. The tea pot should be pleasing to observe, to hold in the hands, and to use. It is an enclosed space for containment, it creates a defined volume within the living space of the home, and it must have the attributes to efficiently serve its contents as desired. As I return to making functional pottery in stoneware, I am again searching the perimeters of design of the pleasing and functional vessel.




Chad Sims

Chad Sims graduated with a degree in Art from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he majored in Graphic Design. He also studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. His works have been displayed in various galleries including the Jules Gallery in Fayetteville, AR; DDP Gallery in Fayetteville, AR; Gallery 26 in Little Rock, AR; and have been shown publicly in conjunction with Art Amiss, a Fayetteville-based collective for emerging artists.

This collection of works ranges from earlier, more detailed, meticulous and deliberate watercolor and pencil pictures, to more recent work in red and white earthenware clay. Due in part to the nature of the medium, the clay tiles took on a more urgent and basic quality (the lines for example being drawn more gesturally, and the compositions made simpler). Clay provided an opportunity to explore and stylize more elemental forms and figures, which I hope might one day populate paintings like the earlier more elaborately composed ones. Working with glazes and underglazes, which can't as readily be mixed and blended with one another the way watercolors can, forced me to look at color in a new way; to compose in flat blocks of color and to rely less on blending and shading and modeling of forms.


Fayetteville Underground : 4 Art Galleries : Working Artist Studios
One East Center Street : Fayetteville, AR
Fayetteville Underground Gallery Hours: W-F 12-7pm and Saturday 10-5
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayttevilleunderground.blogspot.com




Monday, October 3, 2011

First Thursday: October

Join us First Thursday October 6th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

The clay works of Kelley Hatfield Wilks will be featured in the Revolver. Sabine Schmidt will present her latest collection of photography in the Vault.The paintings of Becki Lamascus will be on display in the Hive along with Flannery Grace Horan's ornate, hand fabricated jewelry.The E Street Gallery will feature jewelry pieces and wall hangings created by Teresa Hall.




Metal Transitions
Teresa Hall

As an evolving mixed metal artist, I have finally found artistic satisfaction that combines my passion for painting landscapes and torching, bending, and soldering metals.  The results are rich patinas that I use to create a rustic style of art to include jewelry as well as wall pieces.  I have always been a fan of form and function with regards to art, and as a self-taught jewelry designer and trained painter, I now consider myself to be a mixed metal artist with a focus on the rustic and organic forms.   My fascination began with an accidental walk around a junkyard some fifteen years ago where I discovered an array of metals and the intriguing patinas that were a result of weather, age, etc.  I began experimenting with the manipulation of metals by hammering, torching and soldering forms to achieve desirable colors and shapes that I incorporated into large format wall hangings, as well as smaller investigations which continue to explore in the form of jewelry.   I consider the art of jewelry design to be closely related to sculpture as my pieces involve building and balance to achieve a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing piece of jewelry that can be worn on a daily basis.  In addition, there is a lot of satisfaction in transforming salvage into what I consider a rustic style of functional art.       

It is my hope to transcend through the building process the spirit of nature as my art has always been inspired by the landscape.  I live and work in Northwest Arkansas, but I spent quite a bit of time in Santa Fe, which still is the inspiration for many of my pieces because the copper patinas remind me of the peaceful, natural erosions found in the desert.  Even though my pieces appear rough to the eye, they are very comfortable and smooth to wear.  I am drawn mostly to bracelets because I believe they have an empowering feeling that I hope to share

Set My Watch Against the City Clock
Sabine Schmidt

The works in Set My Watch against the City Clock reflect the process of exploring the house as object and idea. A house provides shelter but also a sense of home. Houses appear in dreams and serve as metaphors for the human soul. Owning one is an important life goal; losing it can be catastrophic.
After photographing buildings in various states of use all over the United States and abroad for several years, Sabine Schmidt began to re-evaluate how humans create, destroy, and remember built space. As the most basic of such spaces, structures that “house” people share visual and functional elements. 

Schmidt took those familiar features out of context by making miniature houses (mostly) from paper and placing them in different exterior and interior environments. They are out of scale and out of place, creating a tension between object and location that is meant to trigger thoughts on place and belonging. Viewers are invited to let the photos remind them of real or imagined places they know.

Life's Little Cakes
Kelley Hatfield Wilks

I had years of drafting in high school and have always appreciated the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudi, and Bruce Goff. Although my primary medium is clay, I have always had a camera in my hands or within reach. I’ve used it to document all the wonderful textures in the architecture of life. Bringing my passions together I’ve titled this exhibit "Life's Little Cakes - Architectural Elements". I feel that it is the design elements that we choose to live with that are part of the wonderful sweetness in life, thus the cake. I have created Keystones, Tile Murals, Chandeliers and Sconces , Vessel Sinks and more all from porcelain, stoneware and glass along with photographic images of architectural interest from my travels around the world. I've chosen works with strong geometric presence and hopefully a sense of whimsy for this show. I hope they make you smile and want to live with a little more cake...

Animal Technology
Flannery Grace Horan & Becki Lamascus

Flannery:
When I was learning to talk, my mama asked me where I came from. I told her that I came from the moon. I said that as soon as I picked her to be my mama, I was in her belly, which I described as "hot, dark, and loud." Although I don't recall saying that, the image of me flying from the moon to earth has always stuck with me, and it started me thinking about time and space, and how to go beyond those things. Growing up as an only child I had plenty of time to get lost in my imagination, my photographic memory, and my dreams. I also had access to open space in the country around Quitman, Arkansas, where my grandparents had a farm. Since childhood, I have loved nature and animals, and venerated them. My family is not short on artistic ability, and somehow it filtered to me, but I never considered it as a career until 1996, when I spent a summer in Taos, New Mexico, with my uncle who is a master silversmith. Using only archaic tools and methods, he would hand make beautiful pieces of jewelry and sculpture. I was in love with the process and the result. I had found a spark that lit up my future. I became an artist. I started leaving behind me a trail of pieces that will last far beyond my own lifespan. I began dropping heirlooms whose stories will continue to evolve long after I have forgotten them. I began bending and manipulating not only metal and stones, but time and space as well. I love the idea that my work can survive millennia, that each piece has the potential to be a time machine. Since I hand fabricate every single bit of every single piece using only simple, old tools, I feel like I am in a grand relay handing the past to the future. For 15 years I have been speaking my official language, the language of my process. Soldering, grinding, sawing, filing, bending, those actions are not hindered by the limitations of words or inflections or geography. As the creator/vehicle, they speak to me on my terms, as the viewer/wearer they speak to you on your terms. I am so grateful for this timeless universal language, so happy with my animal technology.


Becki:
Evolutionary arms races and manipulation of one organism by another through many generations can cause physical and behavioral adaptations in all of the creatures involved. In Earth’s history, dinosaurs were once prevalent and mammals less diverse. When a series of cataclysmic events killed off almost all dinosaur species, mammals were able to spread widely after resources became available that had not been so before.  Each ecosystem is made up of a network of relationships, but it is made up of small, self-interested components.  The interactions are not necessarily harmonious.  

In my paintings, I have created a world where the dinosaurs did not go extinct, but did experience some population depletion through catastrophe. The surviving mammals and dinosaurs evolved together over time, but the mammals had new opportunities to diversify because of the shifts in populations and diversity.  The mammals evolved through natural selection to fill the niches vacated by the ecologically vulnerable dinosaurs. With increased intelligence, clever mammals developed technology and began to domesticate the dinosaurs.  The relationship among the species gradually shifted over generations.  An amiable dinosaur was bred and this led to an unintended consequence, the display of other behavioral traits that were linked to the genes for docility.  Increased intelligence and communicative abilities resulted from the breeding for friendliness.  Genes with complimentary “skills” prospered in the presence of each other.  Traits within a population were favored if they happened to interact harmoniously with the other components that were frequent in the population.  Mammals that adapted in cooperation with the dinosaurs’ changes had an advantage over the ones who resisted the change.  Mammal adaptations developed that favored cooperation with the newly sentient dinosaurs.  A more symbiotic relationship between the mammals and dinosaurs was the surprise result of the selective breeding and domestication.  These paintings illustrate my anthropomorphic vision of such an ecological historical revisionism. 

The concept of manifest destiny has influenced my painted world with an element of parallel historical allegory.  The mammals use guns and technological advantages to dominate and oppress the dinosaurs. The original manifest destiny concept is infused with racial entitlement and religious domination. The way I am using the concept is through a comparison of technologically advantaged mammals’ having this sense of entitlement, like past European conquerors.  In this metaphor, the dinosaurs represent native peoples of areas taken over by the expansionist mammals.  The evolution of the species’ relations over time is representative of the historical shifts in global imperialist attitudes of cultural entitlement during the last few centuries. 

In the clocks, I use my clever animals in a more humorous context. The clocks all have 12 letter phrases that begin the idea process. Once I decide what 12 letter phrases or words I will use on the clock face, I think of a visually funny interpretation for the accompanying painted image. I dis-assemble the clock, make a new cardboard face for it and paint in acrylics. Then, I print out the letters, cut them out with scissors, and glue them on. After that, I varnish the painted surface and re-assemble the clock. The concepts of time and numbers are almost antithetical to words and images. The juxtaposition of the ideas on a single surface, gives the clock a feeling not usually associated with time keeping.  Any clock I make can also be assembled into a functional and great looking photo print version clock.

Monday, August 29, 2011

First Thursday September: Heaton, Sheets, Molina, Chapman

Join us First Thursday September 1st from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Linda Sheets' scratch board works will be shown in the Revolver gallery. This will be Linda's first solo exhibition at the Underground since joining us as a studio artist. Linda is a transplant from Texas, and her "Dog and Monkey" show is sure to be a hit. Megan Chapman will present her latest series of abstract paintings, "Sometimes I love you and other stories," in the Vault gallery. The colorful contemporary paintings of U.K. visiting artist, Steven Heaton will be featured in the Hive gallery while Martha Molina's raku pottery will be in the E Street.


Steven Heaton
The World Without Us

My work is inspired by nature and the interaction of the mechanical and the man made element upon the landscape. Within my paintings, texture and surface is explored by using a variety of materials from traditional oil, and acrylic paint to the heavily layered and corroded use of metal and wire.
My work presents an alternative view of this natural and chemical landscape as the lines of communication begin to blur, factories rust against an autumnal background & nature begins to creep into dominance where regular human use declines.
Time continues to pass in a world without us.



Revolver

Dog and MonkeyLinda Sheets
Dog And Monkey Show

I believe life is mostly just a series of activities and events. We spend a lot of our time pursuing some and avoiding others. The first main event, of course, is our birth; the last, our death. My goal is to squeeze as many pleasurable activities and fun events in between those two uncontrollable major events. Making monkeys, dogs and other art objects enables me to share just a bit of the absolute delight that I feel about this whole adventure of life. The secret is to not take myself or my art too seriously. There are many dark events and activities that I have experienced and even participated in, it's hard to avoid them. …knowing this, I prefer to chase the lightness, the joy, the bliss, however fleeting and elusive, for as long as I can.

Martha Molina
Feu d'artifice

Ed PennebakerMartha Molina grew up in Clay County in Northeast Arkansas influenced and encouraged to embrace her great grandmother's Native American culture. She actively practiced various crafts and loved the materials that were found in nature and from an early age she hand built animals and vessels from clay. Martha received her B.A. and M.ED. from Southeastern Louisiana University where she discovered the process for life masks and began making performance masks for costumes and storytelling as well as decorations such as three dimensional portraits through experimentation. Martha returned to Arkansas in 1993 and has been active in the arts community every since living and working in Fayetteville. She has worked as a multi-disciplined on the Arkansas Arts Council AIE Artist Roster and has conducted artist residencies throughout the state in theatre, mask-making, watercolor, and clay. She currently teaches art at St. Joseph School in Fayetteville.

Martha Molina's recent works are mostly nonfunctional pottery choosing alternative firing techniques which give the most unpredictable results. The process of Raku firing intrigues and excites Martha the most as she watches the translucent glow of the work as she pulls it from a 1900 degree kiln. The rapid reduction, cooling and trailing made by the flames creates a final product that cannot be reproduced.

"The process of alternative firing is like an amazing Christmas morning every time I open the kiln!"

Vault

Megan Chapman
Sometimes I love you and other stories

Megan Chapman












Megan Chapman's latest series of paintings, Sometimes I love you and other stories, will be shown at the Fayetteville Underground during the month of September in the Vault Gallery. These monochromatic works are fused with words typed on paper torn from old books and give the viewer the sense of reading pages out of a diary or letters to a distant lover. Very minimal in nature, the work explores the artist's love of the graphite line, as it cuts through the brilliantly white-painted canvas.

The series reflects on the kind of love that catches one unexpectedly, the kind we always knew was somewhere on the planet yet was for others. At the same time that this love seems special or unique, it is also ordinary and known. It is both new and old and never simple or easy, yet somehow it fills the gaps within, making the core of the person it touches stronger.

Sometimes I love you and other stories represents the absence of fear and the challenges to our beliefs about ourselves and the world outside upon finding another soul that we can sometimes love.

Megan Chapman was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon. She has shown her work over the past fifteen years in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington State, Washington D.C., Philadelphia PA, and recently in Liverpool, England. Megan's work has appeared in various publications and is held in numerous private collections both nationally and internationally.



Fayetteville Underground : 4 Art Galleries : Working Artist Studios
One East Center Street : Fayetteville, AR
Fayetteville Underground Gallery Hours: W-F 12-7pm and Saturday 10-5

www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayttevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Sunday, July 31, 2011

First Thurday August: Gardner, Pennebaker, Gosnell, Humphries

Join us First Thursday August 4th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! Duane Gardner's latest works will be on display in the Vault. The glass works of Ed Pennebaker will be on display in the E Street Gallery. Jan Gosnell's paintings will be on display in the Hive. The Revolver will feature the work of visiting artist John Humphries.

Duane Gardner

Duane Gardner
The Day After Yesterday

This series of paintings continues to explore the idea of mark making as well as the process of editing. At the beginning of this year I decided to go in a new minimalist direction and pare down paintings. I felt that my work prior to this series was very heavy handed and I wanted to move away from that.

I have also begun to experiment with using text to express feelings or thoughts. I did not want the text to be immediately apparent so I have attempted to abstract the text. This has been a very interesting process for me because it has forced me to think about text as shape and how to manipulate it. To further obscure the text, I have drawn from my Mexican-American heritage and used Spanish translations of the words or ideas I wanted to convey.


Ed Pennebaker

Ed Pennebaker
Concatenations/Connections

We are all linked together. Nature and our relationship with natural resources has been a topic I relate to in my sculptures. Sometimes the simple movement of grasses and plants is mirrored in the fluidity of the glass. Other times, the concerns of what man is doing by poisoning nature and ultimately himself become the topic. I hope to let viewers interpret and imagine something that speaks to them about our surroundings and our link to nature.


Jan Gosnell

Jan Gosnell
The Fulla' Brush Man

Jan Gosnell will be exhibiting works representative of two modes of perception. One will be works in oil on canvas and the other, figure drawings on paper. The oil paintings are expressions of ideas created from interior resources and developed through the imagination. The figure drawings are rapidly rendered with Conte’ crayon or charcoal with great attention exterior resources.


John Humphries

John Humphries
Fragments of Landscape

John Humphries received a MARCH and BFA from the University of Texas, Arlington. A visual artist and designer focusing on translating one media form to another. Currently, Humphries is an Assistant Professor at and a faculty in the Armstrong Interactive Media Studies at Miami University, Oxford. His extensive history includes group and solo exhibitions such as Kleinert/James Arts Center: Woodstock, New York; Jay Henry Memorial Gallery: Arlington, Texas; Hochschule: Rosenheim, Germany; Foxfire Studio: Rabun Gap, Georgia; Cage Gallery: Oxford Ohio; Beinnale of the Americas: Denver, Colorado, among others.

For Humphries, cities and the representation of cities are rife with uncomfortable hybrids born of erosion, neglect, misconception, new stories, changes in zoning, codes, and program. The ability to quickly transform the essential nature of a context is not to design, create, or fabricate the ideal representation of a place. His reason for going to a place is to transform perception of a place and capture the essence of a moment, for the purpose of engaging, intellectually and emotionally the context.

In this exhibition, the watercolor drawings refer specifically to John Humphries current travels in Malta and focus on using the visual syntax of architecture; to describe urban landscape, shadows, and sun; specifically the moments where these meet.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Book binding workshop at the Fayetteville Underground


Instructor: Lesha Shaver

Cost: $75

When: Friday, July 22, 6-9:30 p.m. and Saturday, July 23, 9 a.m. -12:30 p.m.

Where: Fayetteville Underground

This is the uniquely beautiful Buttonhole binding using bookboard for the covers and spine instead of paper. This exposed spine sewing allows for lots of self expression, so we will each add our own interpretation to this lovely book. No previous experience necessary.

Contact: Phone: (479) 587-0238 or email: info@littlemountainbindery.com to sign up for this exciting class!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

July: Fay, Maule, Florence Academy, Sewell



Join us First Thursday July 7th from 5-8pm at Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions!

Jennifer Libby Fay's exhibition of abstract contemporary textile paintings will be on display in the Vault. The work of Portland visiting artist, Michele Maule will be on display in the Hive.Graduates of the Florence Academy of Art will be featured in the Revolver. The E Street Gallery will feature the carved free-form sculptural vessels of John Sewell.


Jennifer Libby Fay

Through a Narrow Place
Jennifer Libby Fay

A solo exhibition of abstract contemporary textile paintings that considers the miracle of hope and inspiration experienced after a time of transition.

When we find our way through a heartbreaking time of transition and stand in our own truth, the purity of our soul is revealed. We emerge from the Narrow Place feeling gratitude for the gift and beauty of life and the healing has begun. This body of work is about my journey Through a Narrow Place of transition and the hope and inspiration I have found in the process.

Michele Maule

Mise en Place
Michele Maule

Michele Maule is an artist living and working in Portland. She graduated from Portland State University in 2005 with a Bachelor of arts degree in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking with a focus on printmaking. Her work has been shown throughout the county including New York, California, Ohio, Arkansas, and Oregon.

I work in several different mediums including oil painting, collage, printmaking, and illustration. If you asked me which one I likes the most, I wouldn't be able to choose.

Most of my work is based on my personal life experiences and the relationships I have with the people around me. The things that inspire me are the things that fill my everyday life. The things that are often overlooked and otherwise passed up, or put aside. These are the things that I like to take into consideration. These are the things that matter most to myself.

I love finding those moments in life that leave you feeling speechless, and sometimes a little awkward. It's in those moments in life that I find I am most myself. Even at 30 I feel like I am trying to figure things out, and it's through my work that I am able to sort through it all.



Ellen Barkin

Contemporary Classicists: Graduates of The Florence Academy of Art

We are a group show comprised of six artists, from local, national, and international destinations. All are recent graduates of the Florence Academy of Art, a 3-year program that specializes in training representational oil painting and drawing techniques, located in Florence, Italy and Göteborg, Sweden. The selection of work on display demonstrates the technical skills and intensive training, alongside independent styles, concepts, and creativity. Also working at The Fayetteville Underground for the month of July as visiting artists, Maggie Ivy (Fayetteville, Arkansas), Kendric Tonn (Wooster, OH), and Ellen Barkin (Göteborg, Sweden).


John Sewell


Fem Forms
John Sewell

Working with single,often large pieces of wood, I carve free-form sculptural vessels, with designs focused on various expressions of feminine form. I carve the outside of a piece and then the inside, leaving a wall of uniform thickness. The interior is then charred, and the resulting charcoal sandblasted away, leaving a textured surface that darkens to black when lacquered. The exterior is finely sanded and then finished with multiple coats of clear lacquer, each sanded to a fine surface.

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As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5. Tell your friends and see you there! The exhibitions will remain up through July 30th.

The Fayetteville Underground Basement of One East Square Plaza East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square. Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Studio artist Linda Sheets goes National!


We just had to share this fantastic news with you about Fayetteville Underground studio artist Linda Sheets!! Way to go Linda! The following post and image is re-posted by permission of the artist.

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Here is some amazing, exciting news I've been sitting on for a bit too long... Ampersand Art supply will be using some of my scratchboard designs on kits for the retail market. They were a big hit recently at the Namta (International Art Materials Trade Assoc.) show in Phoenix. I was blown away by the response of many of the art retailers and distributors. I loved watching the smiles on their faces as they walked into our booth and saw my designs. Oh Joy!

So, coming soon to a store near you, my monkeys, dogs, and still life kits; 6 total. I continue to believe that anyone (I mean it, anybody)can do this instantly gratifying, fun art! And I do my best to spread the word and convert folks with classes and workshops. These kits have a tool,5"x7" board, instructions and pattern. They are a great way to try out scratchboard, and they make good gifts at a reasonable price. One of my favorite things is watching folks play around with the boards...there are so many different ways to use this product. My style is folk art, some like to do highly detailed realistic drawings. There is room enough for all...

I am tickled beyond belief to be a part of this. Check out Ampersand Art website to see all of their products. If you go to their blog and read the post about back to school specials, I am in there, making monkeys! Yippie eye oh!

I've been quietly waiting to post this (it's so hard for me to be patient..,), it's official now and I can toot my horn all I want! Toot, toot, toot!! We've already gotten a big order from a major art/craft retailer and more to follow. I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT ALL THIS, CAN YOU TELL? And believe me, I am really, really grateful for this opportunity...I feel like a lucky gal!

To visit Linda's blog, the original post and to learn more about her work please click here.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

June: Fitzgibbon, Flanagan, Killian, and Kaminsky

Join us First Thursday June 2nd from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! The work of visiting artist, Sean Fitzgibbon, will be featured in the Revolver. William Mayes Flanagan's watercolor paintings will be on display in the Vault. Sharon Killian will present a variety of mediums in the Hive.The E Street Gallery will feature the work of Hank Kaminsky.


Altered Perceptions
Sean Fitzgibbon

As society becomes more globalized and technologically advanced, I find myself inundated with stimuli and imagery from many different sources. Through my work I attempt to display a beauty and order derived from multiple images as a way to reflect this. My work is often a combination of drawing, painting, and sometimes the incorporation of other media.

Edge of Night
William Mayes Flanagan

I’m interested in change: the signs of change, the moments that we see change happening around us, our perception of the almost imperceptible transition from light to dark and from shape to shadow. My work has always balanced on the edge of night, where the moon and the lone lamp glow. I have sought the hint of mystery, in the places and beings glimpsed in the world of twilight and shadow. In the past year, I’ve explored this world with new pallets and themes. Are these part of my own transition? We will see.

Nature's Challenge
Sharon Killian

I rely on a formalist approach to express how I see as an artist. Formal properties such as color, line, shape and value are emphasized to create this series of works that are my answer to nature’s ridiculous sunsets. I deliberately place on my two-dimensional plane, pieces of color and value, shapes created by one or more of these elements, and flat linear juxtapositions that in the end deliver to the viewer an opportunity for emotional response evocative of that which nature delivered to me through an outrageous spray of light at day’s end. This Nature’s Challenge series are dry pastel on Arches Cover paper.

I live on a hill east of Fayetteville, Arkansas overlooking the White River and the Ozark Mountains. It provides an expansive view of the western and northern skies and nature continually challenges me to create a response through my work with formalist parameters. This series of sunsets are my response to nature’s challenge.
Hank Kaminsky

“I come to this work with broad experience. Over my 52 year career, my work has appeared in many manifestations from tiny jewelry forms to major monumental sculptures. Here, in the E Street Gallery of the Fayetteville Underground, I have chosen to show my small work such as jewelry and small sculptures. The primary focus of my career has been the exploration of intersections, the way that energy, ideas, things and people come together and come forth with new forms. In my jewelry, I have many stories to tell to explain what is happening in my work. Each of those stories gives the audience a personal way into my art making process.”



Monday, May 2, 2011

May: First Thursday: Munro/Bremner, Depper, Arnold, Bohn

Join us First Thursday May 5th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions. We are thrilled to present U.K. artists Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner in their first joint exhibition together in the Hive gallery. Come say hello to Stewart who has traveled a long way from Edinburgh, Scotland to share his and Craig's combined photographic works. Stewart will also be giving an art talk on Saturday May 7th from 11a.m-12p.m. about the process and inspiration behind the exhibition as well as answer your questions. It is always a rare treat to hear directly from the artist, so please be sure to attend. As always our art talks and exhibitions are always free and open to the public.

Also this month The Vault gallery features the dark and industrial, yet always fun works of Matthew Depper. Kevin Arnold's amazing paintings transform the Revolver gallery and the wood and stained glass works of Cheri Bohn will be featured in the E Street Gallery.



Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner

Iteration / Span
Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner


Photographers Craig Munro and Stewart Bremner have known each other for longer than either cares to admit. Coming to photography from different directions, they have met in a middle ground where their individual identities have become blurred. Their work not only reflects how they see the world but seeks to illustrate the physical distance that separates the two of them, as well as the contrasting natures of the cities in which they live (Munro lives in Birmingham, England and Bremner in Edinburgh, Scotland). This will be their first show together.


We are obsessed with photography, with cameras, with making images. We take photos every single day and we have done for many years. We photograph our friends, our families, our loves, our lives. We watch, we record, we think. Photography is both our rock and our burden. In our images, we try to find our place in the world and we seek to maintain a friendship whose beginning seems now shrouded in the mists of the past.


Matthew Depper
Your face here
Matthew
Depper

The last thing I want to be is boring and predictable, even if it's an effective way to survive many situations.Often, I don't know what I'm saying until I see what I've created, then I might have to go back and say it again.If I'm going to be telling the same story over and over, maybe I should try wearing different costumes and changing my voice a little bit each time. Maybe I should try talking like Yoda, or Kermit the frog, or some other small green thing.

Kevin Arnold

Suite 5A
Kevin Arnold

My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me—and to give the mundane its beautiful due.
John Updike

My paintings carry the weight of domestic disconnect through the unsentimental depiction of generic, mass-produced objects. The unnoticed, utilitarian things that facilitate our day-to-day existence — plain cardboard boxes, metal chairs, folding tables, vinyl office furniture — are presented a deadpan, almost Existential manner in order to question our sense of the familiar and the quality of the attention paid to our surroundings.

To say that we are inundated with an ever-growing amount of visual information is by now a cliché. However, in order to process so much information, we must develop routines to separate the consequential from the non-essential. These self-determined routines are particularly important as we transition from one space to the next and the visual “scan” becomes our tool to navigate through this constant flow of information. By painting the mundane to a certain level of realism, I try to disrupt the viewer’s habits of looking and challenge the almost mechanical process of the scan.

The things pictured in my most recent body of work are ubiquitous and are chosen because they have no intrinsic aesthetic value. These Mass-produced, workaday, seemingly “neutral” objects are designed to be used, folded up, put away, re-used until they wear out or fall apart. They stand, piled, stacked, tucked away in corners, and stored away in closets and stockrooms. Through repeated use, even these generic objects begin to develop a kind of “identity,” displaying subtle clues to specific places or particular methods of employ.

My approach has been to paint the objects at a 1:1 ratio from direct observation. The use of trompe l’oeil and the 1:1 ratio is a means of playing with the familiarity of scale and perspective while creating an intimate, almost surreal encounter for the viewer. In other words, the painting begins to function visually in the same way it functions physically. It begins to act like the thing it is.The installation of my work is a large component in rendering meaning from the images.


Cheri Bohn

Cheri Bohn

I combine tree roots and stained glass to create a unique type of art. Each piece is original as the roots set the pattern of design. My work creates a kind of fantasy world with roots morphing into dragons, butterflies, fish, and birds. I also create abstract pieces and mobiles. I graduated from the University of North Texas and moved to the Ozarks in 1999. I have also attended classes at the University of Arkansas. I have displayed in New York, Las Vegas, and Chicago. My work was also exhibited in Nevada at the burning man. I have also displayed in Denton, Texas and of course Fayetteville.

I want my work to portray a human balance with nature. A concept humanity needs. To help with the awareness that nature offers.

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As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through May 28th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Fayetteville Underground: First Thursday April 7th!


Join us First Thursday April 7th from 5-8pm at the Fayetteville Underground for another exciting month of all new exhibitions! This month we are thrilled to be showing the work of three U.K. artists in the Hive Gallery. Steven Heaton, Rob Kedward and John Spurgeon will present their mixed media photography show entitled Theft By Finding. The paintings of visiting artist, Steven Wise will be on display in the Revolver in his show Always. Famed local favorite Don House will show his latest photographic works in his exhibition, 30 Days in the Life in the Vault Gallery. Ceramist Randy Brodnax will be showcased in the E-Street Gallery.

Steven Wise

Steven Wise
Always

Steven Wise currently lives and works in Rogers, Arkansas, where he teaches art in the Rogers Public School District and at the Northwest Arkansas Community College. His work has been nationally exhibited and collected. In his home state of Arkansas, his work has been exhibited in the most competitive exhibitions such as the Annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock (2010, 2004, 2003, 2000) and the Arkansas Arts Council's Annual Small Works on Paper Exhibition (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2004, 1999).

This exhibition at the Fayetteville Underground will showcase more than 20 small paintings on board, along with a selection of sculptures and one large painting. The collection of small paintings are a part of the A series. The A stands for “always” because the series is an ongoing project that the artist began in 2001. To date, Wise has accumulated 54 paintings for the A series. Most of these small works are painted in layers to create unique patterns and textures. The paintings in the series have been worked and reworked by the artist over long stretches of time from three months to three years.

Wise will also include a selection of new sculptures in this exhibition. These pieces were created in the last six months. This will be the first time Wise has shown a sculpture since 1994. Wise used plaster, papier mache, and wood. He then painted on the materials. Wise used the same technique of layering to paint the sculptures that he used in his A series. Wise has included one large painting,
Exodus. Wise began this work after listening to the album “Exodus” by Bob Marley. Its scheme of light and dark colors is used to symbolize the conflict between good and evil. The picture also presents portions of the Book of Exodus such as the Nile River. The narrative elements in the painting mark a divergent path for this painter who primarily works with non-objective forms.

Wise has written that all of his works are a part of a larger body of work that he calls alpha/beta projects. Each letter of the alphabet represents a series of art works. Each piece in the series is labeled with that letter and a chronological number (A01, A02, A03). This plan is named “alpha/beta.” If he follows his plan, he will finish his “life/works/projects” at the age of 55.


John Spurgeon

John Spurgeon, Steven Heaton, Rob Edwards
Theft by Finding

Three artists from the United Kingdom come together for this month’s featured visiting artist exhibition in the Hive gallery. Artist John Spurgeon (a.k.a Shakesmyteeth) is drawn towards archaic language, obsolete media, de-classified documents and discarded items – the images used in this light box series are made using several photographs of Victorian typography, diagrams from WW2 radio handbooks and bleached photographic slides. Artist Steven Heaton’s photography work explores texture and surface and dreamlike places. The viewer gets a sense of the past; dark, theatrical and otherworldly. Rob Kedward's photographs are static captures of an intricate stage where lights, actors and elements have all been purposefully placed to either create or complement the environment. This is the groups first international exhibition.


Don House
30 days in a life

Long known for his black&white landscape, figure, and portrait photography, House has collected a series of new work titled 30 Days In The Life, which documents one month of his continuing study of the region, and in particular, the Buffalo River Wilderness Area, where he spends most of his working hours. The collection of seventeen large photographs includes trees, rocks, fences, moving water, leaves, ice and snow - all of the common elements of the Ozarks, but seen through the monochrome eyes of this old school practitioner.


Randy Brodnax

Randy Brodnax

Randy Brodnax, a lifelong potter and educator from Dallas, Texas, creates everything from functional dinnerware to large decorative vessels to clay sculpture. He has specialized in raku for many years, using natural imagery and drawing upon a wild fantasy world of creatures of the mind. He is a very inventive and intuitive technician.

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As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m. After the reception be sure to come back and visit the galleries during our regular business hours of W-F 12-7 and Sat 10-5.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through April 30th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com