MonticelloLive

University of Arkansas at Monticello Art Professor Tom Richard will open exhibitions of his work in May at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock and at the Laredo Center for the Arts in Laredo, Texas.
            The Arkansas Art Center exhibition, entitled “Tom Richard: Cereal Inquiries,” opens on May 23 and runs through July 20 in the Sam Strauss, Sr. Gallery.
            Richard explores contemporary life through his humorous Chapter Series of mixed media pieces that combine imagery from popular culture with philosophical treatises by modernist and postmodernist theorists. By combining these seemingly disparate sources he restructures their meaning allowing the viewer to see the familiar pop icons (Gumby, G .I. Joe, Fat Albert) again for the first time.
            Richard will give a gallery talk June 13 at 6:30 p.m. on the work in the exhibition. Richard’s talk coincides with the monthly 2nd Friday Art Night – a once-a-month event when the galleries, museums and businesses in downtown Little Rock open from 5-8 p.m. for an after-hours gallery walk.
            The other exhibition, “Tom Richard- Playing: Toys and Stuff,” will be on display in the Lilia G. Martinez Gallery of the Laredo Center for the Arts.  It opens May 9 with a reception and gallery talk and runs through May 31.
            The work at this exhibition consists of mixed media pieces from two current series, “Playing, Watching, Reading, Painting” and “Toys and Stuff.”  The “Toys and Stuff” pieces are all mixed media on paper that depict images of childhood toys singularly juxtaposed with “stuff.”
            The “stuff” that they are combined with is another object, an image from a book, or a pattern.  The association of the toy with the stuff is to be viewed as playfully as the choice of beginning an artwork of a toy.
            For more information, contact Tom Richard at (870) 460-1338.