LITTLE ROCK -- Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, will host the free opening reception for Arkansas artists Robert Lemming and Louis Watts during 2nd Friday Art Night from 5-8 p.m. May 13.
The reception will feature live music by Marchese Hendricks Project featuring Jessica Lauren and Arkansas-made beer from Bubba Brew's Brewing Company in Bonnerdale. The museum store will be open during the reception.
Lemming's Fucoid Arrangements look like alien plant life, a news release said, but they are actually inspired by fossils produced by ancient burrowing arthropods as they searched for food along the seafloor. More than 300 million years ago, the arthropods' aquatic pathways filled with sediment, and in 2011, Lemming found their fossilized traces in the gullies and bluff shelters of northwest Arkansas. Material investigation factors heavily in Lemming's process.
He frequently uses contemporary media like hot glue, acrylic, epoxy, and foam insulation to retrace the steps of prehistoric creatures. Lemming was born in Oklahoma and moved in 1995 to northwest Arkansas, where he works as an art educator.
Arkansas native Watts lives in Carrboro, N.C., where he produces large, nonrepresentational abstract drawings in the graphic tradition of minimalist artists such as Agnes Martin and Frank Stella. Recalling the "golden ratio" and other theories of mathematical beauty, these meticulous geometric drawings explore formal elements like repetition and scale, but also invest in questioning conceptual issues like the value of the artist's time and labor.
The exhibit will continue in Historic Arkansas Museum's Trinity Gallery for Arkansas artists through Aug. 7.
Currently on exhibit:
• "Hugo & Gayne Preller's House of Light."
• "A Diamond in the Rough: 75 Years of Historic Arkansas Museum."
• "Arkansas Contemporaries: Then, Now, Next."
• Maps of Arkansas, 1822-56.
• Niloak Art Pottery Figurines (Benton, 1909-46).
• "We Walk in Two Worlds: The Caddo, Osage and Quapaw in Arkansas." (permanent)
• The Knife Gallery (permanent).
• Historic Homes (permanent).
Historic Arkansas Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission to the galleries and parking are free and admission to the historic grounds is $2.50 for adults, $1 for children under 18 years of age and $1.50 for senior citizens. The Historic Arkansas Museum Store is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1-4 p.m. on Sunday.
Entertainment on 04/22/2016