Works by area artists selected for 55th Delta Exhibition

More than 800 pieces of art were submitted to this year’s Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. Forty-five pieces were selected for the show, including those of four artists from the Tri-Lakes Edition coverage area.

• Beverly Buys of Hot Springs had two cyanotypes chosen for the show: Crowley’s Angel Watching the River and Sharecropper Shack. Both measure 21-by-20 inches.

Buys said cyanotype is an early photographic process that was utilized until the mid-20th century to copy blueprints. The cyanotype’s blue color is a result of iron salts used to make the emulsion. Black-and-white prints are made with an emulsion of silver salts.

“Being selected for inclusion in the Delta is thrilling because it is a validation that keeps me encouraged about the work I am doing,” said Buys, who has taught photography at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia for 17 years. “As an artist in Arkansas, ‘The Delta’ is a show I have enjoyed attending for many years and always with great anticipation and excitement. To be included among the exhibiting artists feels great because the show highlights artists from the region and has been a significant source of inspiration to me as I have developed as an artist.”

Buys teaches and practices film photography. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in art education from Henderson, a Master of Arts degree in photography from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the University of Memphis.

This is the fourth time her work has been selected for the Delta Exhibition.

• Dolores Justus of Hot Springs has one piece in the show — a 30-by-30-inch oil on canvas titled Wading in Gold.

She said her work is inspired by the natural world.

“I’ve always had a strong identification with nature and am continually in awe of the depth of inspiration that it offers,” she said in an artist’s statement. “Despite all its variety, there are essential elements in it — and in us all — that we respond to. It is those universal, underlying truths that I seek to communicate in my own work.”

Justus received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UALR. She owns her own gallery, Justus Fine Art in Hot Springs, and operates the Justus Design and Marketing firm.

Justus’ work has been included in three other Delta exhibits.

“I don’t always enter, and when I do, there are no guarantees the work will be accepted,” she said. “Good curators, for this and any other exhibit, build their shows with work that has some common thread that ties everything together. I do the same thing when I hang exhibits in my gallery. In order to show the work in the best possible way, you bring pieces together that complement each other in some way.”

• Marianne “Mollie” Munro of Hot Springs has two wood sculptures in this year’s Delta Exhibition: Apocalyptic Sanctuary, made from found wood and metal and measuring 19-by-23 inches; and Family Tree, made of maple and walnut and measuring 39-by-12-by-9 inches.

“I have just recently gotten into wood sculpture, so getting two pieces into the Delta was a tremendous honor and thrill, as well as validation of the choice of wood as my medium of expression,” Munro said, adding that this is the first year she has entered the competition.

Her undergraduate degree is in business economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara, but she said she has had a lifelong love of art and crafts and collecting. That love led her back to college, and she has been taking art classes at UALR.

In the fall of 2011, she took a nonfunctional wood construction class in the applied arts department and found that wood is the perfect medium of expression for her. She has focused on wood sculpture ever since.

Munro has worked in the shoe industry for 30 years in her family’s shoe business in Hot Springs. She has served in many capacities: human resources, sales, shoe design, product development, marketing, advertising and ecommerce. She is currently executive vice president of the company and is responsible for marketing, advertising and ecommerce, with international development on the near horizon.

• Katherine Strause of Little Rock has one painting in the show, Cut and Tie. It is an oil on canvas and measures 36-by-48 inches.

“This is the fourth time that I have had work accepted to the Delta Exhibition,” said Strause, who is chair of the art department at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, as well as an associate professor of art.

“It is always an honor to be included in this prestigious exhibition,” she said. “The painting is about cutting ties and binding new ones, or the contracts we make and the associations that we sever when we marry.

“The younger girl in the lower right is questioning the logic [of marriage], and I read her as someone skeptical of the whole arrangement. This painting was a response to my own marriage two years ago this month to my husband, David Jukes.”

Strause holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in visual art from UALR and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

The Delta Exhibition is open to all artists who live in or were born in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

This year’s show will remain on display through March 10 in the Winthrop Rockefeller Gallery of the Arkansas Arts Center, Ninth and Commerce streets in Little Rock. There is no admission charge.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The gallery is closed Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, call (501) 372-4000 or visit www.arkarts.com.