SAAC welcomes a fantastic touring exhibit to the Merkle Gallery that showcases the work of four female artists with ties to Arkansas. “Arkansas Women to Watch 2023: New Worlds” is the latest exhibit in the Women to Watch (W2W) exhibition series, which was conceived by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC, the only museum worldwide solely dedicated to championing women through the arts.
Merkle Gallery March 16 – April 27
Reception Thursday, March 30, 5:00-7:00pm.
W2W was created specifically for NMWA’s 29 US regional and international affiliated communities, including the Arkansas State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (ACNMWA). ACNMWA has participated in every W2W exhibition, which, according to Mary Ross Taylor, president of the Committee, “provides national and international museum recognition for more women artists.”
Chaney Jewel, the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at The Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, selected four artists whose work embodies this year’s “new World” theme for the upcoming exhibition. These participating artists include Anais Dasse, Hannah McBroom, Aimee Papazian and Heidi Carlson-Rogers. In March2023, they will announce which artist is selected to exhibit in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Meet the Artists
Heidi Carlsen-Rogers was born in Alabama and lived in Connecticut, Ohio and Chicago before coming to Bella Vista, Arkansas. She holds a B.S. degree from Kent State University (Ohio). She worked in the display industry before devoting herself full time to her artistic practice combining her floral photography with thread and textiles. Her work has been shown at Chautauqua Institution (New York), Masur Museum of Art (Louisiana), and Wiregrass Museum of Art (Alabama). She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the Arkansas Arts Council (2016) and an Artists 360 grant from the Walton Family Foundation and Mid-America Arts Alliance (2021). She was selected for the juried online registry of the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (2019-2022).
Anais Dassé was born in Bayonne, France in 1988 and lives in Little Rock. She holds a B.A. in Design and a Master’s degree in Scientific/Technical Design from the Estienne School of Art (Paris) and a Master’s degree in IT Project Management from the Sorbonne (Paris). She also holds a diploma in Anatomy and Neuroanatomy from University Paris Diderot. Her first career was as a scientific illustrator and her art reflects her deep interest in representing figures and nature in pseudo-documentary hierarchies and imagined cultural practices. Her work was shown at the 58th Annual Delta Exhibition(2016) and won the Delta Award at the 60th Annual Delta Exhibition (2018) at the Arkansas Arts Center (Museum of Fine Art),Little Rock. Solo exhibitions include Brad Cushman Gallery at University of Arkansas-Little Rock (2019) and Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro (2020).
Hannah McBroom was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1993 and currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She holds a B.F.A. in Painting from Mississippi State University (magna cum laude) and an M.F.A. from University of Arkansas. She received an Artists 360 grant from the Walton Family Foundation and Mid-America Arts Alliance in 2018. Group exhibitions including her work have been held in over a dozen states including at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, and venues in Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, and New York City. Solo exhibitions have been held at the Visual Arts Center in Starkville, MS (2020) and Bunker Gallery, Kansas City, M) (2019). Her work explores themes of transgender identity, materiality, and the body.
Aimée Papazian grew up in New York and formerly lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She holds a B.A. degree in Art/Semiotics from Brown University (Rhode Island) and an M.F.A. degree in Film and Video from Bard College (New York). After working in film and as a media producer, she changed her medium to clay. . She received an Artists 360 grant from the Walton Family Foundation and Mid-America Arts Alliance in 2018. She has been awarded residencies at the Guldagergaard Ceramic Center in Skaelskor, Denmark and at the Zentrum für Keramik (Berlin, Germany). Her work has been exhibited in juried shows. The theme of time is everpresent in both her subject matter and choice of medium.
