New Faculty Exhibition Opens This Week

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Cynthia Norse Thompson (left); Stephanie Pierce (right)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Works by assistant professor of painting Stephanie Pierce and associate professor of printmaking Cynthia Nourse Thompson will be featured in the Fine Arts Center Gallery for a New Faculty Exhibition opening this week. The exhibition will run from Tuesday, Jan. 21, until Sunday, Feb. 23.

“This exhibition highlights the strengths and diversity the recently hired faculty within the department of art bring to the university,” said Thompson. “The show presents painting as well as interdisciplinary work incorporating handmade paper, printmaking techniques and digital imagery.”

A reception will be held for the artists at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30, in the Fine Arts Center Gallery. Pierce will give a lecture following the reception at 5:30 p.m. in room 213 of the Fine Arts Center. Thompson will give her lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in the same location.

Pierce received a master of fine arts from the University of Washington in Seattle and a bachelor of fine arts from the Art Institute of Boston. She also attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art. Her unique style intertwines perceptions and abstraction to express unfolding forms. Pierce teaches painting in the department of art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Thompson earned a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a master of fine arts from Rutgers. Through her work, she tries to portray her own life experiences, as well as concerns with growing up as a young woman in the religious South. Thompson is the curator for the Fine Arts Center Gallery and teaches printmaking and book arts in the department of art.

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. More information about the exhibition and artists is available at the Fine Arts Center Gallery website.