LITTLE ROCK — Arkadelphia artist DebiLynn Fendley challenges herself to enter the Delta Exhibition every year. This year was no exception, and her perseverance paid off.
“This is the fourth time I have been accepted into the Delta,” she said, smiling. “I challenge myself every year to enter the Delta Exhibition, and I will continue to do so.”
Fendley’s work was accepted in 2017, 2015 and 2014, when she received an honorable mention.
Fendley’s work Night is among 50 pieces by 49 artists that are included in the 61st annual Delta Exhibition on display at the Arkansas Arts Center. Guest juror Kevin Cole, a native Arkansan who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, selected the artworks from more than 1,000 entries by 408 artists for the exhibit. He named a $2,500 Grand Award-winner and two $750 Delta Award-winners.
“The particular piece that was selected for this year is an etching/aquatint,” Fendley said. “This is the first year I’ve entered a limited-edition, hand-pulled print, even though I’m typically classified as a printmaker.
“I was a bit shocked when it was selected over the paintings I had entered, but it’s proven to be a popular work this year,” she said. “There are eight of these in the edition, as it was a very difficult plate to print.
“Historically, etchings are made from metal plates that are acid-etched so the plate has varying heights for holding
ink,” she said. “The plate is then inked, wiped and wet paper placed over it to run through a printing press.”
Fendley said she is “unique in that I own my own very large press. … Most other printmakers share or use a press at a public institution.
“By large, I mean mine weighs about 600 pounds,” she said, laughing. “The press pushes the paper into the inked plate, and that’s how the image is made.
“This image — Night —is all about isolation and the feelings of fear and entrapment that comes with it,” she said.
Fendley, a lifelong resident of Arkansas, is a printmaker, documentary photographer and painter, as well as a writer. She holds graduate degrees in both art and English from Henderson State University in Arkadelphia and finished a Master of Fine Arts degree in interdisciplinary art in 2011 at Goddard College in Vermont. She has taught art and English at Henderson and art at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia.
Fendley serves on the Hot Springs Arts and Film Institute and the Central Theater Board of Directors and is director and curator of the first Hot Springs Photography Festival, which continues through June at the Central Theater.
“I will also be participating in two national shows later this year,” she said. “I will have work in the Painting the Figure Now II exhibit at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wausau, Wisconsin, in July and in an exhibit in October at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago.”
Fendley is a founding member of and active exhibitor with the Arkansas Society of Printmakers and is a member of the Southern Graphics Council, the Audubon Artists Society, Allied Artists of America and Professional Photographers of America.
She has been published
in multiple national publications on photography, printmaking and printing, and recently completed her first IMDb (Internet Movie Database) credit as a still photographer on the film Ride Hard, Live Free.
The Delta Exhibition will continue on display through June 30 in the Jeanette Edris Rockefeller and Townsend Wolfe galleries and the Alice Pratt Brown Atrium of the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. Ninth St. in Little Rock. There is no admission charge. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The center is closed Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, call (501) 372-4000.
Groundbreaking on the transformational renovation project of the Arkansas Arts Center is scheduled for this fall.
“Continuing its long and illustrious history, the Delta
Exhibition will pop up at locations across central Arkansas and beyond while the Arts Center’s MacArthur Park building is under construction,” said Brian Lang, Arkansas Arts Center chief curator and Windgate Foundation curator of contemporary craft.