In 'Brightly Slacked Tight, It Sways,' School of Art M.F.A. Candidate Molly Martin Explores Practiced Uncertainty

A thesis exhibition by third-year Master of Fine Arts candidate Molly Martin, Brightly Slacked Tight, It Sways invites viewers into the 3rd Floor Gallery of the Studio and Design Center at the University School of Art to explore vibrant suspended formations and collages that blur the boundaries between drawing, painting, and sculpture. 

"My exhibition includes hybrid formations that gleefully oscillate," Martin said. "These compositions and sculptural formations may later change and can never fully be forecasted." The work resists certainty, instead rehearsing responsiveness and flexibility. By creating conditions that embrace change, Martin sustains the value — and joy — of never quite knowing but doing it anyway.

Using materials that are familiar and close at hand, she uses materials that are familiar and close at hand, often gathered from her surroundings: the hardware store, her studio floor, or her yard. Martin noted the leeway it offers to mess up, not overthink, shift gears mid-construction, and continually rebuild. Materials in the exhibition include sticks and athletic tape. Fallen limbs collected from trees around her home are broken, bound, painted, and suspended in space to create sculptural formations alongside small-scale collages assembled from scrap drawings and paintings. 

The third-year M.F.A. candidate draws inspiration from lines: the ways they bend, twist, construct, support, direct, and break. "They unsettle stability," she noted. Engaging wandering, tangled, and looping lines as conditions for unpredictability, her work explores the irony of actively seeking the unexpected. "But I seek it out anyway," she added. "When a material resists — whether a thread snaps, paper tears, or gravity creates imbalance — I let it."

As a whole, the exhibition leaves viewers with a sense of lightness and charge, an openness to continuing without seeing the full path ahead. Brightly Slacked Tight, It Sways will be on view Feb. 16-28 in the Studio and Design Center's third floor gallery. A public reception will be held from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, in the same location. For more information about the School of Art, visit www.art.uark.edu. 

Molly Martin is an interdisciplinary artist whose work moves between drawing, painting, and sculpture. She earned her B.F.A. in drawing from Missouri State University and is currently a 3rd year M.F.A. candidate in drawing at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including with Chautauqua Visual Arts, the Surface Design Association, Missouri State University, and various regional galleries. She is featured with the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts Artist 2025-2027 Registry. View more on her website: mollymartinstudio.com.