A continued focus on Southern art and artists is ever-present in central Arkansas, as evidenced by the annual exhibition "Southern Abstraction," ongoing through Saturday at Greg Thompson Fine Art in North Little Rock and at a tony new gallery, Guy Bell's Drawl Southern Contemporary Art, dedicated to Southern-based artists, opening next month in The Heights.
"Southern Abstraction," now in its sixth year, is Thompson's biggest show of the summer, with about 30 works. It offers patrons a look at some late and living artists whose techniques reflect those of their contemporaries, and some new styles unique to the creators.
Featured artists include Wolf Kahn, Dusti Bonge, Ida Kohlmeyer and Arkansan James Hendricks, Sammy Peters and Robyn Horn, whom Thompson describes as "the most important abstract sculptor to come out of Arkansas."
Art by the late Bonge, from Mississippi, was displayed over two decades in Betty Parsons' famed gallery in New York along with other well-known abstract expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning.
Bonge was one of the few female artists Parsons represented. The gallerist hosted a one-woman show for Bonge every other year, and two pieces in "Southern Abstraction" -- Untitled (Two Abstract Figures in White, Black and Blue), 1955, and Untitled (Black Abstract With Green, Red and Pink), 1954 -- were featured in the first solo show by Bonge at the Parsons gallery.
The former Untitled piece is under consideration for purchase by a museum, Thompson said, and the latter -- while still on display -- sold the opening night of the local exhibition in July. Since Bonge's death in 1993, there have been only two U.S. galleries to show her work, Thompson's gallery being one of them.
Kohlmeyer, from New Orleans, has four pieces in the exhibition, including Composition 94-31 (1994) and Synthesis 92-11 (1992), both of which are indicative of her later style and language, setting her apart from the abstract impressionist painters she emulated earlier in her career.
"She used this kind of iconic, graphic, almost hieroglyphic imagery -- almost like from dreams," Thompson said. "She started incorporating these things into her paintings. You can spot a Kohlmeyer from 100 feet away."
"Southern Abstraction," through Saturday, Greg Thompson Fine Art, 429 Main St., North Little Rock. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Info: gregthompsonfineart.com or (501) 664-2787.
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Across the Arkansas River, upstairs in a Little Rock office building at 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd., Arkansas artist Guy Bell is outfitting his new Drawl Southern Contemporary Art gallery with works of his own, but more so with those of friends and fellow emerging artists. Among them are Emily Galusha, Charles Buckley, Taimur Cleary, Norwood Creech, Linda Harding, Sam King, Linda Lopez, Linda Williams Palmer, Spencer Purinton, Carmen Alexandria Thompson and Carl Joe Williams.
Purinton and Thompson have not had their work displayed publicly before.
Guy Bell and Lopez, a University of Arkansas art professor, were two of four Arkansas artists featured in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's "State of the Art" exhibition last year. Lopez's sole piece at Drawl, From One Pile to Another (2014), is ceramic, wood, ink and watercolor on paper and easily spotted among the gallery's mostly one-dimensional works.
"One of the greatest rewards is sharing the work of talented artists in the South with collectors that love art with the same passion we feel for it," Bell said during a recent soft opening. Bell's wife, Mary Masching Bell, and Louis France are partners in the venture.
Bell says Southern art "is a genre as skillfully rendered and vibrant as that created anywhere else in the world. We are here to tell people that the South is one of the world's greatest art destinations."
The space, a former doctor's office and lawyer's office, is some 1,500 square feet with about 44 works on display. Bell's studio is in the back.
One of the most engaging works at Drawl is a piece by Texas native Charles Buckley, Wisteria (2014), oil on muslin, that is 4 by 4 feet.
"His work is colorful, bright, intelligent and humble," Bell said. "It doesn't ring of ego, it rings of someone who's dedicated to the process." Buckley currently works in Tupelo, Miss.
Bell is also a huge fan of Cleary, whom he met through a family friend. Cleary paints landscapes and buildings as if they were portraits, eliciting something akin to personalities from them.
"It's an interesting way of looking at the facades of buildings and relating those to the faces of people," Bell said.
An example, currently on display -- Cleary's Ode to an RV (2014), oil on panel, which depicts the rear-end view of a retro RV parked in the shade of some woods. A dent on one side of the vessel appears almost as if it's a dimple on a cheek.
Cleary grew up in Michigan, lives in Little Rock, but recently took a position as head of the painting department at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.
At least in the short term, Bell intends for Drawl to fill a niche in the market for high-quality artwork at "not-so-high prices." All but two pieces on display are priced under $5,000, he said.
Besides a handful of pieces at Drawl, Bell's work can also be found at The Annesdale Park Gallery in Memphis.
Drawl Contemporary Southern Art, 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock. Open by appointment. Starting Oct. 9., hours: 1-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m. -4 p.m. Saturday. Info: drawlgallery.com, (501) 680-1871.
Style on 09/06/2015