SAAC presents “Captivating Landscape,” a group exhibition featuring works by Central Arkansas Artists Susan Baker Chambers, Dolores Justus, Barbara Satterfield, and Sandra Sell from March 3 through April 30, 2026, in the Price Gallery and the work of Arkansas ceramic artist Barbara Satterfield “Found Object Portraits” in the Lobby Gallery from March 3 through March 26, 2026. A reception celebrating the artists will be held on Thursday, March 5, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
The artists contributing to “Captivating Landscapes” share a deep identification with and inspiration drawn from the natural world. While each maintains a distinct visual language and preferred medium, their work reflects personal relationships to gardens, fields, forests, foothills, and waterways. From this common ground, the artists focus on specific elements within particular landscapes, interpreting them through selective and intentional processes that reveal layers of meaning beyond first impressions.
Susan Baker Chambers documents seasonal change within her own backyard flower and vegetable garden, capturing the vibrant activity of native plants, insects, and birds. Her paintings explore rewilding as both subject and metaphor, using saturated color, flattened space, and dynamic pattern to convey the density, movement, and vitality of an urban garden reclaimed by nature.
Dolores Justus presents paintings that distill light, form, and atmosphere into compositions that hover between abstraction and representation. Associated with the “new landscape” movement in contemporary American art, her work invites sustained visual engagement while reflecting a sensitive and intuitive response to nature. “Despite all its variety, there are essential elements in it and in us all that we respond to,” Justus notes. “It is those universal, underlying truths that I seek to communicate in my own work.”
Sandra Sell’s wood sculptures balance biomorphic and geometric forms, reflecting a lifelong fascination with both nature and mechanics. Influenced by early experiences working with wood and a career as an Army mechanic, Sell approaches sculpture as a process of problem-solving and transformation. Her subtractive carving process results in abstract forms that unify emotional response, material, and structure.
Barbara Satterfield’s sculptural clay vessels incorporate detritus collected from the rocky foothills of Central Arkansas. Drawing inspiration from soil, microcosmic life, and natural processes, her work serves as a lifelong homage to nature’s capacity to generate, adapt, and endure. Satterfield has exhibited widely in regional and statewide juried exhibitions and her work is represented in public and private collections.
Together, the artists of “Captivating Landscapes” share a commitment to close observation and personal interpretation of the natural world. Their varied approaches invite viewers to slow down, look closely, and consider how individual perspectives shape our understanding of the landscapes we inhabit.
Also, the work of Arkansas ceramic artist Barbara Satterfield will be featured in the Lobby Gallery from March 3 through March 26, 2026. The exhibition, titled “Barbara Satterfield: Found Object Portraits,” highlights Satterfield’s distinctive sculptural approach to clay and her long-standing fascination with the natural world.
Working from her home studio in Conway, Arkansas, Satterfield creates original ceramic sculptures and vessels inspired by organic forms and textures, frequently incorporating found objects or press molds taken from items she has collected over decades. Working primarily as a coil builder, she pushes the limits of the medium, coaxing clay into unexpected compositions that elevate overlooked details of nature into expressive, portrait-like forms.
Her finishes vary widely, ranging from borosilicate glazes to oil paint and encaustic treatments, emphasizing both material and surface. In addition to sculpture, Satterfield produces a photography line titled “Outside In,” featuring digital images of her original works designed for intimate display in small spaces, shelves, and quiet corners.
SAAC’s galleries are free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm.
