On display

Work by local artists chosen for Delta Exhibition

Tommy Wallace of Conway is participating in the Delta Exhibition for the first time. He received an honorable mention for his smartphone photograph, an inkjet print on Entrada Rag Paper titled Leslie Cafe.
Tommy Wallace of Conway is participating in the Delta Exhibition for the first time. He received an honorable mention for his smartphone photograph, an inkjet print on Entrada Rag Paper titled Leslie Cafe.

The opening reception for the annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center always seems to bring out throngs of people to see what artists were selected for the show in what has become a premier art event in the state. This year was no exception.

Arkansas Arts Center members, artists and guests gathered June 8 first in the auditorium on the lower level of the arts center to hear words from the show’s juror, Betsy Bradley, director of the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. They then made their way upstairs, where they found little elbowroom to view the art on display in the Jeannette Edris Rockefeller and Townsend Wolfe galleries. There was little room, either, in the atrium as members and guests were offered food, drink and live music.

Five artists with ties to the River Valley & Ozark Edition coverage area are among the 57 artists with works in the Delta Exhibition, which Todd Herman, executive director of the Arkansas Arts Center, said has become “a showcase for the dynamic vision of the artists of the Mississippi Delta region.”

Jason McCann of Maumelle, whose works have been included in several past Delta exhibitions, won an honorable mention for his entry The American Student: Marshayla and the Drawing Class.

“This is the first time I have ever won anything in this show,” McCann said, smiling. “I’m excited about it.”

His painting in the Delta Exhibition is part of a series of works that are his response “to public schools becoming increasingly criticized for academic performance while being compared to charter and private schools that don’t have to provide the same type of services to their students,” McCann said.

“I’m showing the individuals who get lost in these discussions: the students,” he said. “I often have students pose for other students in my class, so while that is going on, I capture images for myself. I don’t attempt to exaggerate or romanticize these images. In fact, I appreciate the raw and honest expressions on their faces.

“All of the works are completed in my classroom while I work with and instruct my students. I’m planning to exhibit a complete body of work in this series in September at Boswell Mourot Fine Art [in Little Rock] that will line up to the 60th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock Central High.”

McCann teaches art at Little Rock Central High School. He and his father, Dennis McCann, have been in several Delta Exhibitions, together and separately.

In her juror’s comments, Bradley mentioned Jason McCann’s painting. “I love this painting. … It just speaks to me,” she told the audience.

“The artist Jason McCann has mixed watercolor with pastel on paper,” Bradley said. “That’s very difficult to do, but he has enabled each medium to become … its own.”

McCann said he chose to mix wet and dry techniques because “I feel the watercolor-treated surface creates more depth in the surface in both positive and negative spaces. Also, adding wet materials back into the charcoal and pastel creates unexpected and spontaneous effects that are somewhat random. It allows me to relinquish some of my tendencies to overwork and control the materials.”

McCann has a bachelor’s degree in art education from the University of Central

Arkansas in Conway and a master’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis in painting and drawing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Bradley also awarded an honorable mention to Tommy Wallace of Conway for his photograph, an inkjet print on Entrada Reg Paper titled Leslie Cafe.

In discussing artworks that show “people we know and image,” Bradley said, she could image people coming into this cafe, “orderly in setting,” and see a large portrait of “this person, unruly in appearance,” displayed on the wall.

“This worked visually as a piece of art, and I awarded it an honorable mention,” Bradley said.

Wallace, who is an associate pastor at Family Life Bible Church in Conway and founder

of the Instagram/Facebook group Arkansas Mobile Phoneographers (ArkMoPhs), said this is the first year he has had work shown in the Delta

Exhibition.

“I entered last year but was not selected,” Wallace said. “I am very surprised that I received an honorable mention. This is one of my photos taken with a smartphone.

“Since my introduction to smartphone photography in late 2011, I’ve enjoyed capturing life as I experience it, wherever I am,” he said. “This photo, Leslie Cafe, artistically documents a common scene shared by many Arkansas diners.

“I am very excited to have this photo selected to join other fine art exhibited in the 59th annual Delta Exhibition,” Wallace said.

Other local artists with works in this year’s Delta Exhibition include the following:

• David Bailin of Little Rock, who teaches art at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, had his work Halloween, which he created with charcoal, pastel and coffee over eggshell acrylic on paper, accepted for the show.

“I am thrilled to be part of this Delta Exhibition,” Bailin said. “The Delta has always been an important showcase for regional talent and provides the community with an opportunity to view what’s happening by artists both currently exhibiting and less well-known. Sparking enthusiasm for some and derision for others, [the show] is always entertaining.

“Halloween is inspired by my relationship to my father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s,” Bailin said, noting that his father died in May. “It explores the relationship between drawing/erasing and memory/oblivion, and is part of an ongoing series titled The Erasing.”

Bailin’s work has been selected for numerous Delta exhibitions. Most recently, in 2014 and 2016, he received the Grand Award and the Delta

Award, respectively. Bailin has a Master of Arts degree in creative arts from Hunter College in New York City and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

• Dennis McCann of

Maumelle has three pastels in the show: Working Class, O and Blue.

“I was really surprised when I heard that all three pieces were accepted. This was a first for me. I have had two accepted before, but never three,” said McCann, whose works have been in the show many times in the past.

“This is my 14th time to be in the exhibit, and it is always an honor. I’ve only received one award in all that time, though — an honorable mention years ago. [Winning an award] is on my bucket list. … I would like to win the big one, the Grand Award,” he said.

“But just getting in the show is an honor, and to be in it again with my son, Jason, is really cool,” Dennis McCann said.

“Like most artists, my work has periods of change or growth as I adapt to new techniques and experiences. These changes deal mostly with subject matter, scale and process. Most of my artwork uses strong sunlight and shadows to establish interesting compositions,” McCann said.

“I am currently working on a series of figurative images from both current and old photographs,” he said. “These images emphasize interesting shapes created by the play of light over the human figure and other objects. They represent ‘a slice of life,’ both past and present. Using playful colors on the figures sometimes creates an abstract quality in a realistic setting. The old black-and white-photos also complement the use of charcoal as a medium.

“I am also working on a series of images from neon signs. In these, I focus on a portion of the sign, creating an almost abstract quality. As in my other work, these works rely heavily on light, contrast and shapes.”

McCann is retired from the Little Rock Fire Department and now makes art full time. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in art, a Bachelor of Science in Education degree and a Master of Arts degree in art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

• Jim Volkert of Conway has an oil on canvas, One Point Perspective: After Caillebotte, in the show.

This is the first time Volkert’s work has been selected for the Delta Exhibition.

“The Delta is always an exciting exhibition that reaches deeply into the Southeast region to reveal new work,” Volkert said. “I am very pleased to be included in this wide-ranging show.”

Volkert often re-creates works by well-known artists and puts his special touch on them.

“A few years ago, I had the opportunity to see a retrospective of Gustave Caillebotte at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.,” Volkert said. “His work immediately captured my attention with his rich and carefully constructed paintings of Paris in the late 19th Century. Photography was just emerging, and with his compatriot impressionists Monet, Renoir and Degas, Caillebotte saw painting as a way to focus on everyday activities as if they were a snapshot of the era.

“The Floor Scrapers (1875) amazed me with its powerful depiction of interior space through one point perspective,” he said. “This is the illusion we see every day, where parallel lines seem to converge in the distance to an imagined vanishing point. I decided to make this even more apparent by reinforcing the lines of the floorboards with wires mounted over the top of the piece leading to the single point of convergence.

“For me, the challenge of my work is to replicate a moment in art history, then engineer it one more step to connect with the viewer.”

Volkert holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in art from the University of California at Davis and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. After a stint with the 1970s Los Angeles art scene, and in support of his growing family,

he transferred his skills to museum work. That decision propelled him professionally through his retirement from the Smithsonian Institution in 2005 and forms the basis of his consulting business, Exhibition Associates.

The Delta Exhibition will continue through Aug. 27 at 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 Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, call (501) 372-4000 or visit the website www.arkansasartscenter.org.

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