Silent Interludes
Arts center to host Villegas exhibit
EL DORADO — The South Arkansas Arts Center will present an art exhibit by well-known El Dorado artist, Maria Botti Villegas. Her show, “Silent Interludes,” will hang in the Price and Merkle Galleries May 6 through May 30, with an artist’s reception to be held from 6 until 8 p.m. on May 6.
“Silent Interludes,” a collection of paintings and drawings by Villegas, is the artist’s impressions of single moments in time and space where people have left a mark, somehow. Most of these works started at a local coffee shop in El Dorado, and from there, it evolved to include other images from different venues.
“There’s something captivating in observing people in ordinary circumstances during seconds of their lives, moving around, concentrated in their thoughts about themselves or others. It is fascinating to be in places where people gather to talk, to listen to songs, sometimes unaware of their surroundings. There is always an ephemeral story to document, to witness, to share,” Villegas said.
“During my college years in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I spent countless hours sitting at cafes, contemplating the interaction between people. I studied their attitudes, body language and reactions to what was happening around them. As Argentinian writer Ernesto Sabato observed, ‘I believe in cafes, in dialogue, I believe in the dignity of people, in freedom.’ These cronicas (chronicles) and other series in this show, like Underground Cafes, are impressions of the human expression and human relation with time and space,” Villegas continued.
A professional muralist and multidisciplinary artist, she was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She holds a five-year degree from Pueyrredon
School of Fine Arts in Argentina. Since 1993, she has been an Arkansas Arts Council Artist in Residence.
As a working artist, she has participated in numerous exhibits and competitions in Arkansas, Louisiana and other states. In 2001, Villegas received the Arkansas Committee of the National Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.) scholarship. She has painted more than 30 public murals in our area. She became a U.S. citizen in 2004, and has been a teaching artist at SAAC for 21 years.
Villegas said, “I am so very thankful to the South Arkansas Arts Center for giving me the opportunity to do this show. I’ve been working here for a long time and this is my first time to have my own big show. I’m not in the beginning of my career- not in the end either – but it’s good that this show comes now when I have a more mature body of work – and belief in it.”
For more information on Villegas’ show, call the SAAC at 870-8625474 or visit the website at www.saac-arts.org. SAAC is located at 110 E. Fifth St., El Dorado.