Featured Spring 2021 Work

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Exhibition

Exhibition featuring student BFA Projects

Ashlee Stanley

BFA Painting | Spring 2021

Ashlee Stanley is a 22 year old contemporary oil painter based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
She takes the concept of mental and physical development and conveys it by portraying
figures with dreamlike features surrounded by mushrooms.

Artist Statement

My goal is to express personal growth by combining mushrooms and skeletal parts with a
figure. As a way to acknowledge one’s personal growth, a number of mushrooms are
placed surrounding the figure and grow from the exposed bones. This expresses the part
of them they’re leaving behind being consumed by mushrooms.

Carley Brown

BFA Illustration | Spring 2021

Biography

Carley Brown is originally from North Carolina and came out to Arkansas for school. She is an inspiring Illustrator who loves to work in all types of mediums.

Artist Statement

In this series I am illustrating the ups and downs of relationships through the use of music and conceptual imagery. The music I have chosen all sounds upbeat and fun, while the lyrics convey the highs and lows of what it means to love someone and maybe even fall out of love with them.

Jon Nguyen

BFA Painting | Spring 2021

Biography

I am an oil painter who also enjoys digital art, sculpture, and photography. I was born in Arkansas and have been drawing since I was young. I decided to take painting more seriously after high school. Now I am working towards creating a series of paintings that are based on my inspirations in life.

Artist Statement

Guided by Goddesses is a series of oil paintings that showcase goddesses who each represent a certain feeling or quality. Their environments and adornments reflect the qualities they rule over. The goddesses are embodiments of what I have learned throughout my life. They are physical manifestations of the lessons I had to face in order for me to progress in life. These paintings are meant to tell my journey of self-care and realizing my own personal potential.

Tatiana Correa

BFA Illustration | Spring 2021

Madeline Hutson

BFA Illustration | Spring 2021

Tatiana Correa Bio

I am a BFA: Illustration major with a minor in Digital Graphics. Since I was young I loved creating worlds and story-telling. This project was a collaboration with a good friend of mine to bring to life our love for fantasy. Upon graduating, I aim to become either a storyboard artist or conceptual artist for video games, film, and/or TV.

Omnym Story

One hundred-fifty years into the future, humans and mythical creatures live amongst one another in a world of dystopian magic and technology. Yet with limited magic prowess among the species, there are those who seek to harness all forms of it for their own gain. A human and an elf are all that stands between such threats and the key to the most powerful magic in history.

Before the mythics came, a series of tears in the space time continuum appeared all around the globe. At the time, there was no knowledge of these tears or what had caused them, yet governments sectioned them off intending to find out. For weeks the tears simply existed, some grew larger but not much was learned. However, one day, more and more tears appeared and the originals grew larger and larger until, eventually, they burst—and our worlds collided. Mythics suddenly appeared. The creatures and their homes crashed against us. Unprepared for the sudden growth, many cities and countries collapsed. The largest cities were the first to fall with the dozens of creatures claiming territory, and without the power to use our magic we easily were overrun. Since then, humans have developed their use of magic. The first magicians studied the secrets of magic previously unknown to them and as the generations passed, magicians have reached the magic capacity they have today.

Olivia Blair

BFA Graphic Design | Spring 2021

Biography

Olivia Blair is a Graphic Designer soon to graduate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She has a broad interest in both digital design processes as well as the fine arts. During her time at UA Little Rock, Olivia has been the recipient of the Joan R. Taylor scholarship.

Design Statement

In this project, I have developed an identity system for Blank Group, a fashion brand that has been in the beginning stages of development for several months as a collaboration. The identity system displayed here includes six unique ads, a website, magazine spread, packaging, and tag designs.

The brand takes a lot of inspiration from 90’s high fashion advertisements and catalogs, as well as modern high fashion brands like Botter Paris and Ottolinger. In the case of Botter Paris marketing, they commonly showcase their process of creating their pieces through social media with a “behind the scenes” approach showing sketches, notes, markups, patterns, and photo shoots.

Utilizing this inspiration, and my own design aesthetic, the goal for this project was to accurately depict or reflect the Blank Group’s identity within these items.

Olyvia Bolen

BFA Photography | Spring 2021

Biography

Olyvia Bolen is a photographer who creates work that focuses on loss, memory, paranoia, anxiety and fear. She is in the process of obtaining her BFA at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Artist Statement

This series of work is about paranoia and anxiety. Inspired by movie stills and horror films, each scene is created with three images creating moments within a scene. In each scene I am terrified that I am being watched. When I investigate I find myself alone, the fear and paranoia is being constructed in my mind. This false reality is all in my head.

Featured Spring 2021 Work

Spring 2021 Capstone Exhibition

Every semester, the Department of Art and Design offers an upper-level Capstone course as part of the BA or BFA degrees. The course gives students experience in marketing themselves as artists and designers through mock interviews and resume and portfolio development, and defining their place in the art world.

About The Capstone Students

Ashlee Stanley

BFA Painting

Artist Statement:

My goal is to express personal growth by combining mushrooms and skeletal parts with a figure. As a way to acknowledge one’s personal growth, a number of mushrooms areplaced surrounding the figure and grow from the exposed bones. This expresses the part of them they’re leaving behind being consumed by mushrooms.

Briana Wade

BA Studio Art

Artist Statement

I’m an Art Illustrator creating works straight from my imagination, and with the help of a lot of references that redefine my ideas and twist it to make something new. Just drawing from a simple object like air pods and turning them into a spaceship, giving you a different perspective to these everyday objects. To building new worlds and bringing them life. I like to challenge myself with cityscape concept art just to see what the world would look like with just a little magic infused in.

Jonathan Nguyen

BFA Painting

Artist Statement

I am an oil painter who also enjoys digital art, sculpture, and photography. I was born in Arkansas and have been drawing since I was young. I decided to take painting more seriously after high school. Now I am working towards creating a series of paintings that are based on my inspirations in life.
My work often emphasizes portraits of people. I like to re-imagine many of them as fantasy characters. They can appear as gods, spirits, and personifications of nature. Landscape environments are big influences in my artwork. I enjoy combining portraiture with nature because it brings out the story of a person and reveals more about their personality. I find comfort in painting with oils because it allows me to create the visions I have with unlimited possibilities.

Olyvia Bolen

BFA Photography

Artist Statement

My Photography has to do with deep emotion. Expressing what these emotions look like to me through a photographic process is therapeutic. The emotions being shown are related to stress, anxiety, and frustration.

Rodney Bowie

BA Studio Art

Artist Statement

As a father, I have often wondered how effectual or ineffectual I am at raising my daughter. Many parents most likely feel this same disquiet and underlying fear, so I am certain I am not unique, but it is this emotion I have sought to capture in photography.

In this series, Insufficient Tools, toys most likely possessed by a young girl are juxtaposed against tools with which a father might be familiar. The tools are metal, sharp, dangerous, and hard. They are designed to cut, strike or tear. The question asked by the viewer might be whether or not these tools will damage the toys, instead of repair them or improve them; or whether or not they even belong in the photograph together at all. Either the tools appear poised to attack, or they are laid out, ready to assist and build, but they are wrong for the task at hand, and separated from the toy.

According to traditional roles, fathers might be expected to be hard, tough and unyielding. I have tried on this persona of strict dad but it felt wrong, toxic and harmful. It is something I wish to always recognize and remember as improper and insufficient.

Marissa Davis

BA Studio Art

Artist Statement

In my opinion, the human experience is so much sweeter with a broad perspective. In attempt to add to the pot of never-ending personal experiences that come from several walks of human life, my body of work speaks specifically to a life lived by a black person in the western culture. It is my hope that the viewer can glean and feel comfortable to step into the shoes of someone that leads different type of reality than them.

I find it challenging to venture the territory of racial inequality and the prejudicial treatment of the minority citizen in western culture. However, it is a very large part of the perspective of African American people in America. Having said that, the best way I know to tackle these weighty topics is using my voice to influence what I create. This gives me the space to express what I feel in the most ideal way and also gives viewers the chance to view something that potentially challenges their view of a different reality, encourages the consideration of others and leaves a lasting impact on them in a healthy way.

Lauren Fuller

BA Studio Art

Artist Statement

In this series, I worked with those closest to me to create a series of portraits allowing an honest look into the thoughts and emotions each person is experiencing in their quiet moments at this time in their lives. My goal with this project was to provide an outlet for each subject to speak about their personal trials in life at this very moment and create a piece that would give validity and understanding to each person’s experience.

I have always been fascinated with how people become who they are and how their life experiences, geographical or economic setting influences the outcome of a person. Through my work, I hope to evoke empathy and relation between people of differing culture and background.

While my preferred mediums tend to come in seasons, I have always gravitated to the visual completeness and diversity mixed media provides. The combination of different colors, tones, and textures can each tell a story of the many parts that compose each person.