What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1290149
8 WHAT'S UP! SEPTEMBER 20-26, 2020 Moh'd Bilbeisi Moh'd Bilbeisi is a licensed architect, artist, author and Eminent Profes- sor of Architecture at Oklahoma State University School of Architecture. He teaches design studio as an experiential and poetic artform that is compliant with environmental and technical considerations. In addition to the design studio, he lectures in the topics of graphics and theory of representation and history/theory of Islamic architecture. Professor Bilbeisi is a seasoned traveler and has taught, lectured and conducted graphic workshops both nationally and internationally. He has also taught at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey and the Ameri- can University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Kim Brewer Kim Brewer was born in Fort Worth in 1981. Her work investigates social justice issues through a variety of mediums from pure painting to contem- porary craft. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from Texas Woman's University in 2015. Her work has been shown at various galleries in the South and has been reviewed in multiple publications includ- ing Urban Art and Antiques and Arkansas Made. Her work was recently selected for inclusion in the biennial state tour, "Arkansas Women to Watch 2021: Paper Routes." She lives and works in Little Rock. Margaret Correll Margaret Correll was born in Pasadena, Calif., and lived in several other places while growing up. In 1996 she and her family moved to Bella Vista, where she currently resides. Correll has worked in many media but is presently working in mixed media and continuing to follow the evolution of her mixed media projects. She received her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, her MFA from Otis Art Institute and did a one semester studio art internship affiliated with the Whitney Museum in New York City. Is One The Loneliest Number? Art Ventures exhibit ponders product of pandemic LARA JO HIGHTOWER NWA Democrat-Gazette T he pandemic has not slowed the Northwest Arkansas artists' collective Art Ventures down a single bit: The busy organization closed "The Ways We See" in August, opened "The Shape of Our World" that same month and is now premiering "Isolation." It's a timely exhibition "about the complexities of limited human interaction" that asks the questions, "How much emotional connectivity do you need? How valuable is a hug or a touch of the skin? Does physical isolation become psychological isolation? How do you adapt to forced isolation?" These are certainly questions that most of us find ourselves asking, and Art Ventures strives to give us some answers via the artistic output of Moh'd Bilbeisi, Kim Brewer, Margaret Correll, Ruth Lawlor and Erika Nelson. James Jackson, Art Ventures operations manager, says the exhibit was conceived by the organization's two University of Arkansas interns, Morgan Garner and Jordan Jones. "We've amped up our intern program, and our goal is to make sure that we have our interns not only working for us, and getting gallery experience, but that they also have something they can take with them for whatever career they choose in the future," says Jackson. "We set it up so that they knew how to do an exhibition proposal, and 'Isolation' is one that they proposed. It was late in the semester, around April, when we were initially discussing it, and those were the early days of covid, not knowing what was going to happen, people completely isolated, not venturing out as much as they are now. So [Garner and Jones] wanted to have our artists give their perspective on their own isolation — whether that was physical isolation or a disability that caused them to socially self- isolate, even in normal times." Jackson says the interns are part of the Box /Cooper Curatorial Internship Program, developed by Sharon Killian, Rick Cooper and Cece Box. "They provided the funding for it, and then we have an outreach person at the School of Art at the University, and our applicants come through them," explains Jackson. "Originally, there was only one position, but last semester we decided to divide it into "Alleged Shapes No. 4" By Kim Brewer From the artist's statement: "Derived from 'mug shots,' this body of work explores the relative frailty of the human condition in isolation and interrogates the mug shot as a platform for the perpetual captivity of the individual. Some individuals present themselves in defiance of their 'captors,' while others are entirely consumed with their own intense set of circumstances; the varied expressions portrayed evoke images which are dynamic and often moving." FEATURE GO ONLINE! 'Isolation' artventures-nwa.org