Texas Art at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts’ “Delta Triennial”

At the end of June, Glasstire Assistant Editor William Sarradet and I traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas to visit the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA). It was the first time that either of us had been to the museum, which reopened in 2023 after a major renovation project. The grounds, the building, and the collection were all impressive, but the main reason for our visit was to see the Delta Triennial and the seven Texas artists who are part of the juried exhibition.

AMFA held the first Delta exhibition in 1958, with the goal of showcasing artists working in Arkansas and its adjacent states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas). Over the years, the exhibition format has shifted, with the most recent change refocusing from an annual presentation to a triennial. This adjustment allows artists more time between open calls for the show, and is an opportunity for the AMFA to adjust its budget, allowing for larger prizes for the winners and more funds allocated to support artwork transportation. 

The exhibition was juried by Amy Kligman, the Executive Artistic Director at Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri; Alexis McGrigg, a contemporary artist with an MFA from Texas Tech University; and Takako Tanabe, the founding director of Ulterior Gallery, located in SoHo, New York. The show brings together artists working in a variety of mediums and covering a broad range of topics and themes that are relevant to the U.S. Mid-South. Some works speak to the history of art in the area, referencing Regionalism and fiber work, and others address historic and contemporary issues related to land and racial justice. 

Even before walking into the exhibition, Texas art takes center stage as Colette Copeland’s sound installation Texas Sounding: Let Your Voice Be Heard is presented in the elevator lobbies of the museum. The work is an ongoing community-based collaborative project. In response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and proposed Texas legislation that compromises LGBTQ rights, Copeland invited people from historically marginalized groups, such as women, non-binary, and queer folks, to record their voices. At various locations, including Richard Serra’s Vortex on the grounds of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, guests were asked to vocalize a phrase or a series of phrases they wanted to send out into the universe. 

Copeland recorded each individual and composed their messages into chant-like audio tracks. Artists such as Sheryl Anaya, Kim Bishop, Diane Durant, Juan Carlos Escobedo, Sara Fox, Randy Guthmiller, Gabi Magaly, and Sarah Sudhoff are among the voices that have been recorded to date. Each track is just a few minutes long, but all are powerful. Statements such as “You will not shame me into silence” and “The boy is a little too brown, but he’s pretty” allude to the ocean of personal experiences that have shaped the speakers.

Beyond the sound element itself, Copeland’s work is also a call to action. Nearby take-away papers provide guidance and opportunities for others to send a voice memo to the artist to share their experience of deep listening.

Leigh Merrill is a Dallas-based artist whose photo-based works address human impact on the land. Her compositions often draw from multiple source images and alter color and texture to create soft pastel scenes. Lost Pine uses some of these same techniques in a style that is clearly Merrill’s, while also bringing in silhouetted trees and other flora. The heavy contrast between the dark and light forms adds a dynamic quality to her work. Her sometimes eerie scenes, often devoid of people and animals, are equally magical. This piece in particular beautifully contrasts the rough textures of the tree trunks with the soft gradation of the background.

Around the corner from Merrill’s work is a painting by Andrew Lyman, another Dallas-based artist. Though the subject matter Lyman approaches is vastly different from Merrill’s landscape, both artists draw inspiration from source images and distort the originals. Lyman often paints from film stills, overlaying images and creating dream-like scenes. In Autobahn, textures disrupt the figures as if we are looking through them into another space. Similarly, light and shadow create markings that play between foreground and background. A toy-like sized racetrack floats in space before the figures; the scene warps time and place.

Another figurative work in the show is Life Series by Houston-based Brian Ellison. Ellison’s practice has long focused on issues related to masculinity, specifically for Black men. His work engages in conversations about the importance of vulnerability and providing spaces for men to grieve, heal, and celebrate. Ellison’s Life Series, on view in the Delta, is part of a larger body of work that offers photographic depictions of Black life, with the iconic red Life magazine logo in the upper corner. The photograph shows an everyday moment of care: a woman styles a man’s hair as they sit on the stairs of a porch. The work is reminiscent of black and white photographs taken by Gordon Parks, who was hired in 1948 as the first African American staff photographer for Life. Life Series pays homage to Parks while also sharing a contemporary scene of Black life, and perhaps questions what representation looks like today.

Nearby, two photographic works by Fort Worth artist Letitia Huckaby also form a bridge between historic and contemporary stories of Black life. (Disclosure: I currently serve on the Board of Directors of Kinfolk House, an art space owned and operated by Letitia and Sedrick Huckaby.) Mr. Keeby and Ms. Woods are two pieces from Bitter Waters Sweet, a series Huckaby completed in 2022 focused on the history of Africatown in Alabama. The works depict the silhouettes of Africatown residents who are descendants of the West Africans who were brought to the U.S. on the Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in the U.S. The idea of care also arises in Huckaby’s work: the soft silhouettes overlaid on floral bedsheets and framed in thin, warm wood frames, evoke a sense of deep adoration and respect. Toward the bottom of each work there is red embroidered text with the phrase “Seed of…,” which lists the sitter’s ancestor who was part of the founding community of Africatown. The powerful works feel like visual echoes of the past, reminding us of how we are all still connected to the legacy of slavery in the U.S.

One of the largest pieces in the front gallery of the Delta is Houston-based Lindsay Peyton’s Two days until I go home, and that makes me wonder what home even is. Hanging from the ceiling, the work cascades down to the floor like a waterfall. The canvas is covered in sometimes legible text and smears of paint, charcoal, and graphite. Coupled with the water-like flow of the artwork, the title brings to mind the migration of people in the Mid-South caused by hurricanes and flooding. Looking up at the piece I immediately thought of the power of water to displace not only objects, but also people, histories, and land, over time. The idea of home is ever-changing and shifting, which can be terrifying in some ways and reassuring in others — more than anything home is resilient and it can be wherever we need it to be.

Salvage, an assemblage style installation by Tyler-based Philana Oliphant, hangs in the back gallery of the exhibition. A curving metal bar reaches out from the wall and holds an array of drawings and cut paper pieces featuring images of birds, including detailed graphite renderings presented with their wings outstretched as if in flight. However, the paper they are drawn on dangles lifeless from bar. Salvage has a sense of delicacy to it — the small pieces making up the work are suspended and might shift with a slight breeze. Taking in the sculpture, I consider what things I personally, or we as a society, hold dear and deem worthy of saving.

Though Molly Kaderka, who received the $5,000 Grand Prize Award, was born in Austin, she is technically one of the artists representing Oklahoma, where she currently lives. Her wall installation of hand-marbled paper, measuring over 14-by-18-feet, was mesmerizing. Covering the back wall of the exhibition, from a distance Ferrous Form’s dark center acts like a black hole, drawing the viewer ever closer. Around the darkness is a swirl of paper with a painted texture reminiscent of a rocky surface. Upon closer inspection, the dark field contains a depiction of stars. At once the piece feels warm, inviting, and foreboding, like an otherworldly nest or cubby that you might disappear into. The scale is ambitious and the technique is surprising; it is a clear standout in the show. 

As a whole, the Delta Triennial brings together artists at various stages of their careers who are working in this particular region and addressing a wide range of ideas through a variety of processes. The show is successful at making connections across seven states, while also highlighting a diversity of experiences and perspectives. The Texas representations are strong, though hopefully in the next iteration we will see artists from Central, South, and West Texas as well. 

The 2024 Delta Triennial is on view at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts from June 28 through August 25, 2024.