����vlog���� senior art major Keyannah Roberts will present her artwork, “Arkansas Bottoms,” as her Senior Art Exhibit April 28 through May 8 in the Stephens Gallery.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 7-8 p.m. on Monday, May 4, in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center.

From New Spadra, Ark., Roberts is a life-long Arkansas painter who said her artwork is an “amalgamation of the sorrowful and serene found in the dark country of the Arkansas Bottoms.”

“Through the mediums of acrylic, oil, charcoal, and sculptures, I capture the essence of the nature and the people who live there,” Roberts added. “In my experience, poverty leads to a stagnation of aesthetics and technology over time. The wood paneling and cigarette-stained backgrounds look outdated, modern designs are not maintained or updated in a struggling life.”

Roberts said she was 7 years old the first time she went walking in the Arkansas Bottoms, low-lying flood plains near the Arkansas River.

“Representing the underside, the Bottoms are where poaching, dealing, and deaths happen,” she said. “Despite the dangers hanging in every tree, they are frequented often. I, however, did not find any poaching; only a beautiful landscape and abandoned deer bones that I now associate with home.”

Roberts said that her art captures the local side of her ancestry.

“My Dominican heritage is as absent from my upbringing,” she said. “Be that as it may, I know the local culture well, despite not seeing myself in it. As someone of mixed race, I have the intimate perspective of a local and the isolated objectiveness of an outsider. The portraits serve to simultaneously act as a local, familiar face and as a window to an unfamiliar one. Using a Renaissance-like style, I paint fantastical portraits loosely based on the people I have met while living in Arkansas. From the solemn contempt, to the pleading helplessness, these are based on the human condition expressed on a canvas. A narrative follows the portraits through depicted through the use of symbolism. Flowers and wedding rings are used as symbols weaving the characters together.”

Through charcoal and paint, Roberts’ canvases “show the harsh yet beautiful reality of the South from the eyes of a poor kid living outside city limits.”

“Creating art from something inherently distasteful is visually captivating,” she added. “Humans are drawn to both aesthetics and darker aspects of life. Whether the viewer’s reaction is revulsion or captivation I want to elicit emotion in others through my art.”

Roberts won second place in River Valley Collegiate Art competition earlier this semester. 

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����vlog���� art major Kate Baptiste will present her Senior Art Exhibit, “See Through Me,” from April 14-23 in the University’s Stephens Gallery.

There will be a recepetion to meet the artist from 7-8 p.m. April 17 in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center.

Originally from Paris, Ark., Baptiste will graduate in May with an art degree and minors in theatre, sociology, and health science. She received the Joe Hoing Leadership Impact award and won second place in the 2025 River Valley Collegiate Art Competition.

Baptiste’s style combines mixed media, vivid colors, and textured brush strokes to create a stylized conglomeration of memories that shaped who she is, and in turn forges a timeline how her identity evolved.

“My work takes the liminal space between memory and present consciousness to examine how their interplay shapes my values,” she said. “I reflect on both pivotal and mundane moments of my life and break down what each has taught me. Reexamining these memories from a more mature lens allows me to express what I have lost, gained, and found value in. I use these values as a guide to explore the concept of identity throughout my work.”

Her art form is primarily 2D mixed media pieces.

“Oil paint is chosen for its ability to capture depth in both light and dark intensities,” she said. “Its vivid hues embed emotion in each piece, creating palpable dramatic tones. The medium’s capacity for heavy texture also introduces a three-dimensional quality, engaging the sensory aspect of feeling. This textured surface invites viewers to want to touch the work, connecting them both physically and emotionally to the experience. Charcoal creates rich contrasts and striking details, while flecks of gold leaf scattered throughout various pieces catch the viewer’s eye and momentarily reflect the value of the memory. These give a tangible form to the emotions behind each piece.”

Baptiste said her ultimate goal is to “remove the viewer from the present moment and transport them into another time and experience.”

“Each element is a crucial component to the interaction, the framing considered to be an integral part of the overall experience. As well, I don’t want the work to simply hang off the wall, but rather come out into the viewer’s space and envelope them. This encourages a dialogue with the viewer about my identity and moral values.  I am drawn to Expressionism and Surrealism, and my evolution of perception and memories is inspired by the similar dream-like state that Surrealism captures. In my work, the pieces are not strictly depicting a singular memory, but rather combine multiple aspects of time, past, present, and future, creating metamorphosis of distinct times and experiences. It draws on the theory of psychological continuity by John Locke. I take inspiration from Expressionism with the use of heavily textured physical brushstrokes that demonstrate the emotion escaping the 2D plane and engaging the viewer.”

“Ultimately, my goal is to relate and connect through a broader sense of interconnected human identity. I will continue to explore how different mediums are able to create depth and take the artwork from a piece separate to the viewer- to find connection. Conceptually, I want to find values that can transcend across people and time, furthering the notion of what identity is.”

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Little Rock-based oil painter Katherine Strause will present her exhibit, “Women, Standing in Power,” at the ����vlog����’ Stephens Gallery through April 1 as part of the University’s Artist of the Month Series.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 5-6 p.m.  March 31 in the gallery.

Strause said her work is rooted in in memory, lived experience, and the emotional architecture of women’s lives.

“I paint women not as symbols or archetypes, but as complex, enduring presences — layered, scarred, luminous, and resolute,” she said. “The Fierce Women series grew from a deep need to confront strength directly. These figures do not perform power; they inhabit it. They stand in it quietly, sometimes defiantly, sometimes tenderly — but always fully. I am interested in that moment when vulnerability and authority occupy the same body.”

Strause said her earlier works explore similar terrain: personal history, Southern identity, inherited memory, and the quiet resilience passed from one generation of women to the next.

“Across collections, the through-line is endurance — not as spectacle, but as daily practice,” she said. “After a two-year pause from exhibiting, this body of work feels less like a return and more like a continuation. The break sharpened my understanding of why I paint. Painting, for me, is an act of witnessing. It is a way of honoring the emotional truths many women carry but rarely name aloud.”

She said oil paint allows for weight and revision.

“I build surfaces slowly — scraping, layering, allowing history to remain visible beneath the present image. The physicality of the medium mirrors the psychological layering within the subjects themselves. These women are not asking for permission. They are not waiting to be understood. They are standing in power — grounded in experience, marked by history, and wholly present.”

Strause’s commitment to honoring women’s stories extends beyond the canvas. She is the illustrator of “From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song (2024)” by Stephen Koch, a landmark contribution to Arkansas music history and recipient of the 2025 Award for Excellence for Best Research in Recorded Popular Music from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections and the 2025 Arkansiana Award from the Arkansas State Library Association.

Strause previously served as chair of the Department of Art at Henderson State University, concluding her tenure in 2022. She maintains an active studio practice and works as a curriculum consultant in visual and performing arts program development.

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��Russellville, Ark., potter, painter, and educator Soyoon Ahn will display her exhibit,��“Ancient Soul, Modern Touch: A Dialogue Across Time,”��in the ����vlog����’ Stephens Gallery through Feb. 20 as part of the University’s Artist of the Month Series.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center in Clarksville. There is no cost to view the exhibit and it is open to the public when classes are in session from 9-4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Ahn serves as an adjunct professor of art at ����vlog���� and Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.

She said she draws her inspiration from Korean folk art, Minwha. With over 12 years of experience in creating functional pottery, she has explored ways to integrate traditional Korean folk painting designs into modern American ceramics.

“My artistic practice is centered on the movement of ‘modernizing tradition.’ I am deeply intrigued by how ancient techniques such as traditional Korean pottery and Korean folk painting can be reimagined through a contemporary lens to speak to the future,” she said. “I work across the mediums of ceramics and painting to find a natural way to bring these two worlds together. In my ceramic work, I embrace the unpredictability of the fire, creating functional pieces intended for daily use. In contrast, my Korean folk paintings, Minwha, offer a sense of calm through controlled, delicate brushwork. Both practices are inspired by a desire to draw elements from nature and imbue them with a refined Korean aesthetic.”

Ahn said she views her work as a “platform for community and connection.”

“The most rewarding moments of my career occur when people from diverse backgrounds connect with my pieces, allowing Korean aesthetics to become a part of their everyday narratives. Through this exhibition I invite you to experience the harmony between the earthy spontaneity of clay and the intricate details of tradition. I continue my journey of creating art that makes the ancient feel present and the personal feel universal.”

Throughout her career, she has received several awards for her ceramics and Korean folk paintings.

In 2024 she established her art studio ‘Atelier A’ in downtown Russellville. There she fosters community through pottery classes covering wheel-throwing, hand-building, and surface decoration. Her works are represented at prestigious venues including Boswell-Mourot Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock, Historic Arkansas Museum Store, and Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery in Mountain View, Ark.

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Arkansas clay artist Barbara Satterfield will present her exhibit, “Call and Response: Coil Constructions by Barbara Satterfield,” at ����vlog���� as part of the Artist of the Month series.

The exhibit will be on display in the Stephens Gallery from Nov. 10 through Dec. 12. There will be a recpetion to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. on Nov. 17 in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center.

Satterfield, who resides in Conway,�� said she loves the��pace of rolling, stacking, smoothing and shaping clay coils.��

“I especially enjoy testing how high, wide, asymmetrical and thin-walled I can make each piece,” she said. “It’s a challenge that requires me to focus my understanding of the medium to accommodate the gravity, humidity and timing that affect a successful coil-building process.”

Satterfield said the inspiration for her work is the natural world.

“I feel that I’m stretching my ideas over imagined frameworks, called to interpret the diverse and purposeful forms that fascinate me: nests, seeds and pods, stones, sticks, roots, fungi and those that fly, creep and slither,” she said. “What I create is my response, rooted and nurtured by my process. My artwork encourages me to observe closely, interpret creatively and share ideas about my connections with nature. This exhibit invites visitors to do the same, in the hope that we all will take time to renew our relationships with this resilient yet fragile planet.”

Satterfield has exhibited work in regional and Arkansas group shows and juried competitions for over 30 years, including the Arkansas Arts Center Delta Exhibition, Arts and Sciences Center for Southeast Arkansas, Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, Historic Arkansas Museum, The Galleries at Library Square, Fenix Gallery Fayetteville, and the South Arkansas Arts Center and others. Her artwork has received awards, has been recognized in the media, and is in private and public collections. Her work and her practice has been featured in video presentations sponsored by the Arkansas Arts Center (A/MFA) and the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Satterfield earned her BA in theater from Hendrix College, a BFA in studio ceramics from the University of Central Arkansas, an MFA in studio ceramics at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., receiving the Bernard Glassman Prize, and her MA in museum studies at the same institution. She taught art museum studies as faculty in the UCA Department of Art and directed UCA’s Baum Gallery of Fine Art for 10 years after which she has shared her expertise by conducting art workshops for teachers and agencies, managed statewide art exhibition tours, and served at the officer level on the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Committee of One Hundred to Benefit the Ozark Folk Center. 

She and her husband, Jim Volkert, have four children and seven grandchildren spread from the east to west coasts and in between.

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Little Rock artist Michael Shaeffer will present his exhibit,��“Gimme Danger: Works by Michael Shaeffer,”��through Sept. 25, as part of the ����vlog����’ Artist of the Month Series.

The exhibit will be on display in the Stephens Gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center. The gallery is open to the public during business hours and there is no cost for admission.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. On Sept. 25, in the gallery.

According to Shaeffer, “Gimme Danger” explores the “complexities of personal identity—how society shapes us and the cultural forces we choose to embrace.”

“The exhibition brings together portraits alongside drawings of objects and ideas, creating a visual dialogue between the individual and the world around them,” he said. “Through illustration and painting, the work seeks to navigate, question, and better understand where both artist and viewer situate themselves within today’s shifting landscape.”

Originally from Long Island, N.Y., Shaeffer relocated to Hot Springs in the mid-1990s. After finishing high school, Shaeffer found himself back home in New York where he attended the School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan and focused on illustration. This is where the current style of his work began to form. Stylized portraits confront the idea of personal identity and social status within American culture. 

Shaeffer currently resides in Little Rock. His work has been featured in a great deal of group and solo exhibitions in Arkansas as well as New York and Kansas City over the past few years . His work on paper and canvas as well as his apparel line and accessory line, House of Shaeffer, can be found in a great number of private collections. He has been represented by M2 Gallery since 2018.

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����vlog���� art student Elisabeth Hays will present her senior art exhibit, “The Inbetween,” from May 6-10, in the Stephens Gallery on campus.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. on May 10 in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center.

Hays, an art major from Van Buren, Ark., works in mixed media. She said the inspiration for her art stems from growing up in a small town and attending college at U of O.

“My world was a small bubble, surrounded by mostly family and friends living in a small town in Arkansas,” she said. “It was comfortable and familiar, but as I grew up, I naturally developed a desire for a world outside of my own. I dreamt of being independent, to see new places and meet people with different perspectives on life. That is what college has been for me. An alternate reality. I have always been hyper-aware that my experience here is temporary and this world I have created will soon end. This fact drove me to create these works to preserve this small universe as it is. It is the space in-between the person I have been and the person I will become.”

Hays said her paintings focus on table settings—close-up glimpses of her everyday life in college. 

“These moments, captured in both paper collage and paint, are rendered with abstraction to reflect the distortion and dream-like quality that memory often holds,” she said. “My cyanotypes, created from pictures I’ve taken, further this exploration by merging the real and imagined—combining the tangible world of my college experience with my imagination. Through this work, I investigate the emotional spaces between memories: the subtle, in-between moments that linger and shape how we remember the past.”

Hays’ passion for art history has been enriched by her volunteer work at Arts On Main in Van Buren, where she recently served as a gallery assistant. She has actively sought opportunities within her community to engage her artistic skills, which includes judging the River Valley Student Art Competition in February 2024 and showcasing her work in the Collegiate Art Competition in March 2025.

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����vlog���� art student Alexandra Melgar will present her senior art exhibit, “Egos de la Identidad/Echoes of Identity,” from April 29 through May 3 in the Stephens Gallery on campus.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. on May 3, in the gallery.

Melgar is a business administration and art major from Panama. Born and raised in in the Central American country, Melgar said her artistic practice is deeply rooted in her experiences in the rich cultural heritage of her homeland. 

“My art celebrates the vibrant traditions, objects, and moments that define my personal and cultural narrative,” she said. “It reflects my journey, identity, and the stories that have shaped me. My work is a manifestation of my exploration of culture, memory, and the emotional resonance of everyday life, serving as an homage to where I come from.”

Melgar primarily works in black pen drawings and acrylic paintings. 

“The black pen drawings purposely simplify forms, emphasizing texture and intricate linework while still offering enough visual description to convey deep emotion,” Melgar said. “In contrast, my acrylic paintings are stylized with a blotchy, textured application, referencing the colorful festivals and lively experiences of Panama. Influenced by the vivid designs of molas and the vibrant hues of traditional polleras, my color choices celebrate the rich cultural heritage that informs my memory and imagination. Though rooted in my personal past, these works are designed to create immediate and universal connections for viewers.”

She said her artistic process is deeply tied to memory — “deliberately hazy and less precise, focusing not on exact detail but on the feeling of the moment.”

“This intentional blurring invites the viewer to engage emotionally, emphasizing the atmosphere and nostalgia rather than a literal depiction. Figures, landscapes, and everyday objects in my work become conduits for storytelling, revealing the intimate yet universal nature of human experience. Through symbols, color palettes, and detailed yet interpretive imagery, I explore identity, nostalgia, and cultural heritage. My compositions often balance realism and abstraction, offering both familiar and interpretative entry points into each piece.”

Melgar said that “ultimately, my work invites dialogue about heritage, personal history, and the shared moments that shape us. Each piece serves as a bridge for reflection, honoring the beauty found in both the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of life.”

Melgar said during her time at Ozarks, she has developed a passion for visual storytelling. She exhibited her work in multiple venues, including the 2024 and 2025 Collegiate Art Competition at the River Valley Arts Center and the A.R.C.H. Symposium at��Ozarks. She received first place awards in both exhibitions with her piece “Shifting Perspectives.”

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����vlog���� student Genesis Zamora Baltodano will present her Senior Art Exhibit, “In the beginning,” from April 22-26 in the Stephens Gallery.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 6-7 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, in the gallery. 

Zamora, from Managua, Nicaragua, said the inspiration for her exhibit stems from her name.

“My name Genesis means origin or in the beginning,” she said. “This exhibit is about me as a way of self-exploration. My mind is full of complex thoughts, emotions, and passions, and I react to life intensely. This is a collection of mixed-media works, and the implementation of collages directly references my fragmented personality. I wanted to capture the complexity of who I am in the pieces of this exhibition.”

Zamora said her artwork is mostly monochromatic with accents of colors.

“It is my ideal way to express emotion,” she said. “My artwork is nostalgic. The implementation of texture and the constant use of red in my collages help me convey emotions from moments in my life, and red stands for how passionate I am.”

Zamora is an art and communication major. In May 2024, she won first place in the ARCH Symposium in the oral presentation category with her research on the “Artistic Work of Anatomy: A Scientific Lens Through Michelangelo’s Masterpieces.” She also received the Outstanding Student in Art Award and the Amanda Alders Pike Art Award. 

After graduation, Zamora plans to pursue her dreams of working as an artist, attend grad school, and become an art curator.

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Taichi Hara, an art major at ����vlog����, will present his Senior Art Exhibit, Origami in Focus, in the University’s Stephens Gallery from April 8-12.

Hara’s senior project incorporates the Japanese art of origami with photography.

“My artwork combines the use of origami and photography to show scenes of my life,” he said. “I create small to medium size origami pieces and place them into a background. These backgrounds can be nature settings in either America or Japan or a photograph of places I have visited. Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding — from ori meaning ‘folding” and kami meaning ‘paper.’ The origami pieces represent Japanese culture combined with American culture to show the mixing of the two which represents my experience. I take photographs to capture and share stories from my childhood.”

Hara said he had not done any origami recently until he was in Professor Green’s Sculpture class, when he decided to make an origami chicken from several folded origami pieces into a larger sculpture.

“The main themes for my photographs are animals, memories, and the duality of culture,” he said. “I picked animals like frogs, dogs, foxes, and birds because of how they fit into the nature setting. Some memories are when I went on vacation to Washington D.C., riding the trains in Japan, and enjoying the cherry blossoms in my home country. The duality of cultures is shown by incorporating my culture into places on my college campus, as well as around town. In several of the photographs, you will see buildings from the ����vlog���� campus. This conceptual art represents origami as real things in everyday life.”

Hana said his artwork, Golden Pheasant, shows his overall theme.

“The origami animal is a golden pheasant which is called ‘kinei’ in Japanese,” he said. “The bird is mostly a gold color which symbolizes an important color in Japanese art and how it is used in temples. The colors also represent the look of this bird. The white feathers match the white flowers on the pear tree which reminds me of cherry blossoms in Japan. Taking this photograph with my origami art in a tree in Clarksville shows the duality of culture.”

Hara was born in Gifu Ogaki Hayashi in Japan. He is scheduled to graduate in May with a major in art and minors in psychology and communication. Last month, he received honorable mention for his photographs in the River Valley Arts Center Collegiate Art Competition.

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