What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1046990
feature 8 What's up! November 4-10, 2018 Faq 'Of Legends and Lore' WHEN — On exhibit through Jan. 12; gallery hours are noon-2 p.m. Monday-friday and one hour prior to most performances WHERE — Joy Pratt Markham Gallery inside Walton arts Center in fayetteville COST — free INFO — 443-5600, waltonartscenter.org exhibition views world through lens of lore JOCELYN MURPHY NWA Democrat-Gazette T he Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville is, of course, known for its celebration and support of the performing arts, but the nonprofit organization also champions the visual arts. Inside the performing arts center is a gallery space where visitors can view works across mediums from budding artists and internationally established names. The current exhibition, which opened Oct. 23 at the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery, uses the mythology and the teachings of familiar tales many people grew up with as an abstract lens through which we might consider the complex times we currently face. "My love is coming up with a theme and selecting artists whose work relates to that in a way that's going to challenge the viewer," shares curator Cynthia Nourse Thompson. "In a way, I feel that the exhibitions I curate are a narrative or a tale or a story themselves. Even by the way in which they're placed in the gallery and hung, how one informs the other creates an interesting relationship or narrative for the viewer to think about and contemplate." "Of Legends and Lore" was born of Thompson's interest in storytelling and how compelling it can be to return to things one learned as a child and reexamine them with the experience of time. The exhibition functions in a similar way to many of the fairy tales we learn as children — charming imagery of animals and nature and beauty draw one in, but with closer inspection, the viewer realizes there is often a darker narrative stirring beneath the surface. "The artists are contemplating and examining psychological, ethical and social implications embodied in storytelling. And it's through various lenses — it's feminism, mythology, social history and literature," Thompson explains. "I think these stories become more impactful as more historical events happen, as we've become adults, and we have different life lessons that we've learned that we now can look back on these tales and reflect on them in a different way." Thompson shared a few more of her thoughts with What's Up! on four of the six lauded artists included in "Of Legends and Lore," on exhibit through Jan. 12. An Artistic Tale Julie Buffalohead "The Trickster Showdown" Photo courtesy: Highpoint Editions and Julie Buffalohead