Clarksville artist wins Grand Award for sculpture at Delta Exhibition.

Clarksville artist wins big for sculpture in Delta show

Dawn Holder of Clarksville has won the Grand Award at the 59th annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Exhibition juror Betsy Bradley made the announcement after her lecture at the Arts Center Thursday evening, during a preview reception for the museum’s members. Bradley is the director of the Mississippi Museum of Art.

The exhibition opens to the public today.

Holder, associate professor of art at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, won the $2,500 prize for her porcelain sculpture Grass Variation (Mowed Path).

Two Delta Awards, with a prize of $750 each, were won by Paula Kovarik of Memphis for her thread, fabric and batting work Chaos Ensues and by Carlyle Wolfe of Oxford, Miss., for her sculpture of stainless steel cutouts suspended by synthetic line titled Fall.

LaDawna Whiteside of Fayetteville won the Contemporaries Award and a $250 prize for her graphite on paper work Body: Flesh and Bone. This award is chosen by the Contemporaries, an auxiliary membership group of the Arkansas Arts Center.

Honorable mentions were awarded to Tommy Wallace of Conway for his inkjet print on Entrada Rag Paper titled Leslie Cafe, Frank Hamrick of Ruston, La., for the handmade book Harder than writing a good haiku; Jason McCann of Maumelle for his watercolor and pastel painting The American Student: Marshayla and the Drawing Class; Tim Tyler of Bella Vista for his oil painting Trike, and Daniel Cassity of Hot Springs for an oil on panel The Wonderweapon.

The 59th annual Delta Exhibition has 73 works by 57 artists. Some 1,120 entries were submitted by 497 artists.

The exhibition was founded in 1958 as a showcase for contemporary works by artists born in or currently living in Arkansas and bordering states. It is open to works of all media.

Sponsors include Isabel and John Ed Anthony, Lisenne Rockefeller, Ginanne Graves Long, Dianne and Bobby Tucker, AAC Contemporaries and Edafio Technology Partners. The Grand Award is supported by The John William Linn Endowment Fund. The exhibition is supported by the Andre Simon Memorial Trust in memory of everyone who has died of AIDS.

The exhibition runs through Aug. 27 at the Arkansas Arts Center, Ninth and Commerce streets, Little Rock. More information is available at arkansasartscenter.org or by calling (501) 3724000.