LITTLE ROCK — Several young artists from the Three Rivers Edition coverage area have their work on display in the annual Young Arkansas Artists Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. The exhibit will be on view through June 30.
The exhibit features works by Arkansas students in kindergarten through high school, in a wide range of mediums and techniques.
“The Young Arkansas Artists Exhibition fosters arts appreciation throughout the state,” said Rana Edgar, Arkansas Arts Center director of education and programs. “By providing a platform to celebrate creative expression, the Arkansas Arts Center reinforces the important role art plays in every classroom and every community.”
This year, 500 works were entered by 145 public- and private-school educators, home-school educators and private art instructors from all corners of the state. Following submission, a panel of art professionals selected the top works from each grade to be exhibited at the Arkansas Arts Center. The panel selected 79 works for the exhibition, representing 47 schools across the state. From those works, one Best in Class and two Honorable Mention awards were chosen for each grade by a grand juror. The juror also selected recipients of the Mid-Southern Watercolorists Award for Achievement in Watercolor and the Ray Smenner Award for Achievement in Painting. Members of the Arkansas Art Educators Association selected one Teacher’s Choice award from each grade level as well.
Each winning artist’s school receives a monetary award to support its art program. Selected works from the exhibition will travel to schools and other venues around the state as part of the Arkansas Arts Center’s Statewide ArtsReach Programs.
The exhibition will open with a Family Festival and Awards Ceremony on Saturday. Activities for children of all ages will be offered from 10-11:30 a.m.
in the Alice Pratt Brown Atrium, and awards will be presented at 11:30 in the Lower Lobby Lecture Hall.
Local students with works in the show, listed according to school, include the following:
• Beebe High School, Beebe:
Ninth-grader Halle Hardin, with a colored-pencil piece, Jellyfish Original Wk.
Eleventh-grader Izabel McCane, who won an Honorable Mention award with a graphite piece, Asleep.
• Beebe Junior High School, Beebe:
Eighth-grader Rinrada Seeboonruang, who won a Teacher’s Choice award with a marker piece, Isolated.
• Cabot Junior High School North, Cabot:
Eighth-grader Jay Decker, who won an Honorable Mention award with an ebony-pencil piece, Study.
• CD Creative Studio, Cabot:
Twelfth-grader Mikayla Boyd, who won an Honorable Mention award with a watercolor and Prismacolor work, Listening.
• Highland Middle School, Highland:
• Eighth-grader Ashlyn Williams, with an acrylic, Self-Portrait in Grayscale.
• Highland High School, Highland:
Ninth-grader Skylar Casey, with a charcoal, Under Pressure.
• Shannon Wiggins’ art class, Cabot:
Third-grader Ava Hann, who won an Honorable Mention award with an acrylic, Best Buds.
Fourth-grader Camden Wells, who won Honorable Mention and Teacher’s Choice awards with an acrylic, First Snow.
Sixth-grader Abigail Hann, with a watercolor, Best Friend.
• Newport Elementary School, Newport:
First-grader Colby Edens, who won an Honorable Mention award with a mixed-media piece, The Beast.
The Arkansas Arts Center is at Ninth and Commerce streets in Little Rock. Gallery hours are
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. The center is closed on Mondays and major holidays. There is no admission charge.
For more information, call (501) 372-4000 or visit www.arkarts.com.