BAM to Offer DNSPE Printmaking Symposium Featuring Several Presenters
JONESBORO — Bradbury Art Museum (BAM) and Arkansas State University’s Department of Art + Design will celebrate the 29th year of the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition (DNSPE) by hosting the 2025 DNSPE Printmaking Symposium on Thursday, Feb. 20, and Friday, Feb. 21.
A-State art students and visiting students from the University of Memphis will present Pecha Kucha style talks about their work from 1 until 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, in room 1051 of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building, located at 2401 Aggie Rd.
Pecha Kucha presentations are traditionally comprised of 20 slides that auto advance after 20 seconds for a total presentation time of approximately six and a half minutes. This format helps emerging artists to practice talking about their artwork in front of an audience.
At 5 p.m. that evening, visiting artist Jillian Marie Browning will deliver an artist talk about her work, as seen in the exhibition “SunSoilSkin&Bone,” in the Grand Hall of Fowler Center, located at 201 Olympic Dr.
“Jillian’s work has so much presence in the gallery. There’s nothing quite like walking into the exhibition and seeing these monumental cyanotypes tower over you as a viewer. We’re thrilled for the campus to have the opportunity to meet the person behind these powerful images,” said Madeline McMahan, assistant director and curator at BAM.
The events on Friday, Feb. 21, will begin with three artist demonstrations in the Fine Arts Center, at 2412 Quapaw Way.
From 9 until 10 a.m., a Joomchi paper-making demo from artist Yangbin Park will be held. A walk-through with Arkansas artist Jonathan Wright of his black-ink-on-black-paper relief printing process will be held from 10:15 until 11:15 a.m. From 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., there will be a cyanotype workshop with Jillian Marie Browning.
The demonstrations from Park, who is Memphis-based, and Wright, who lives in Pine Bluff, will take place in the printmaking studio space in the Fine Arts Center.
Weather permitting, Browning’s cyanotype workshop will take place outside so participants can utilize sunlight for the exposure process.
At 3 p.m. that afternoon, all three visiting artists will join visiting tattoo artist Nickole Ashlock in the Fine Arts Center Gallery for a panel discussion titled “Flesh + Fiber,” mediated by Lydia Dildilian, Madeline McMahan and Robyn Wall.
Ashlock, a tattooer originally from Northeast Arkansas, is one of the artists featured in “Delta Ink,” an exhibition that showcases tattoo art in the Arkansas Delta region. The exhibition was co-curated by McMahan and Dildilian to be a companion exhibition to DNSPE, highlighting a fuller spectrum of ink’s artistic possibilities.
As a closing celebration for the events, the Department of Art + Design and BAM will co-host the Delta Ink Crawl. The art crawl will consist of signature cocktails and mocktails at Brickhouse Bar and Grill, located at 218 South Main St., and a live tattoo demonstration at Gallery of Ink, located at 218 Union St., from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Participants can also participate in temporary tattoo making activities and receive specially designed temporary tattoos.
The night will close with live music and an art exhibition at Something Gallery, located at 101 South Church Street in suite 202, owned and operated by Department of Art + Design alumnus Youssef Sheroubi.
DNSPE, “SunSoilSkin&Bone,” “Informing the Present,” and “Delta Ink” remain open through Wednesday, Feb. 26.
