Exhibitions

Chuck Davis: The Wheel showcases 38 photographic images, many taken using antique equipment (a 1904 Seroco 4×5 dry plate camera) and printing techniques: tintypes, large format film, and wet-plate photography which uses hand-coated emulsions on glass.

Davis describes his exhibition, “The Wheel is the name of a project in progress, honoring and observing lands once described as Indian Territory. Cultural narratives inform this project, situated in places of forced relocation—and especially areas near the terminus of the Trail of Tears.” The name itself—The Wheel—refers to the lottery wheel that contained the slips of paper that told newly-arrived Europeans where their new parcels of land were located.

Come view a student art exhibition that represents the community and spirit of Future School of Fort Smith. A Bridge to the Future shows the individuality in all the students. From multimedia works to charcoal, the exhibition shows the spectrum of talent and strife they will not only use for themselves, but for the betterment of their Future.

Regional artists are the focus of the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, and the watercolors in the exhibition Doyle Young – Painted Stories: Reflections of Southern Days Gone By seek to capture the artist’s passion for the places he has lived—the Delta region of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. While living in Dardanelle, Arkansas, and traveling extensively throughout the Delta region, Young became captivated with the remnants of a cultural potpourri that is becoming more and more just a faded memory—a culture consisting of cotton fields, sharecropper shacks, field labor and river plantations, and colorful small-town life. 

Feng Zikai (1898–1975) was a prolific artist, writer, and intellectual, who made strides in the fields of music, art, literature, philosophy, and translation. He is best known for pioneering manhua (Chinese comic art) and earned the nickname of “artist of children” for his paintings depicting children, often his own, in his works.

“In these recent years, my heart has been occupied by four things: deities and stars in the sky, as well as art and children on human earth. My children, who resemble swallows, share the deepest destiny with me, and possess equal standing with deities, stars and art in my heart.”  — Feng Zikai, “My Children” (1928)

Long after his death in 1975, Feng’s essays and cartoons are still popular with the Chinese public. His name lives on in the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award, established in 2009.

Shabana Kauser, a Fayetteville, Arkansas, artist, creates contemporary portrait paintings in oil and mixed media that are influenced by her experiences as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants. Kauser’s painting inspiration of women wearing traditional fabrics of the dupatta (scarf worn in South Asia) comes from her mother’s work creating traditional outfits for the Pakistani and Indian community
in the UK, where Kauser lived until 2008. 

“Exploring identity and immigration through the eyes of a living female artist of color, I use my Pakistani heritage and Western culture to tell a story of change, culture, social, and economic impact. Each work up close allows you to examine each thread, its imperfections and uniqueness.”  —Shabana Kauser