Visual Arts at Walton Arts Center

Visual Arts

Not Just a Performing Arts Center

Walton Arts Center is known and loved for our live performances, but did you also know that visual arts and artists have been presented regularly in the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery for 30 years?

Joy Pratt Markham was a Fayetteville visual artist, teacher and philanthropist. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, she studied under George Bellows at the Art Institute of Chicago. Markham left a gift to the University of Arkansas to support visual and performing arts when she passed in 1976. Part of those funds were used to build Walton Arts Center in 1992, which included the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery to honor her lifelong arts legacy.

The gallery has featured both national and international artists, but recently has focused on showcasing regional artists with help from local art experts. This season’s guest exhibition curators are local artist Kathy P. Thompson and Gerry Snyder, executive director and distinguished professor of art at the University of Arkansas.

“Showcasing regional artists builds community connection,” Thompson said, “by allowing patrons to experience art created here by people who they might pass walking on the street. That is important and can be very powerful.”

This season starts and ends with two exhibitions showcasing work from the University of Arkansas School of Art curated by Snyder. Thompson is curating the popular Our Art Our Region Our Time, a juried exhibition featuring new work by artists who call Northwest Arkansas home, and 100 Photographs: Andrew Kilgore.

On Display in the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery

Currents

Aug. 12-Sept. 25

Works by Dylan Dewitt and Kasey Ramirez

Our Art Our Region Our Time

Oct. 6-Nov. 13

Featuring works by regional artists

100 Photographs: Andrew Kilgore

Jan. 6-March 17

Ceramics

April 6-May 28

Located adjacent to Walker Atrium at Walton Arts Center, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery is free and open to the public 60 minutes before every performance, during intermission and 10am until 2pm weekdays.