the following was posted by Annette Whitehead, December 28th, 2008, for Ouachita’s online student newspaper, The Signal.
I’ve never been a big fan of Andy Warhol. I never really saw the point in portraying a person’s face in the brightest colors available, or recreating boxes from a store shelf, or even flat-colored soup cans. But as an artist, I study art movements for reference, and I see exhibits for the personal look of art.
As I walked into the Warhol exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center, I was not surprised to be greeted with huge, fluorescent images of Marilyn Monroe. Her face was on several walls, all bright, but all different. They were much larger than I expected, given that the size referenced in a book gives no justice to an art piece in person. I was able to get close and examine each individual screen print, and read the artist’s explanation for producing these works. I was intrigued.
Continuing through the exhibit, there were several prints that I’ve never seen, and I was happy to see some early works that included sketches. Seeing work from before an artist became famous helps aspiring artists see where it all began.
After looking at a particularly interesting piece about string, I saw a rather large, silver Mylar balloon floating to seemingly nowhere. It had escaped from its room… click here for the complete story.
