Arkansas Women to Watch 2023: New Worlds is the latest exhibit in the Women to Watch exhibition series, conceived by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It will be in the International Paper Gallery at the Arts and Science Center for Southest Arkansas in Pine Bluff through August 20.

The Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts organizes the statewide tour of the art by the Arkansas nominees. View the exhibition page.

Guest curator Chaney Jewell, then Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Arts and Science Center of Southeast Arkansas, nominated four Arkansas artists whose work embodies the New Worlds theme of Migration or Stagnation of an Individual, Environmental Changes, Physical or Emotional Growth of an Individual and Imaginary Worlds: Heidi Carlsen-Rogers, Anaïs Dassé, Hannah McBroom, and Aimée Papazian.

On August 24, the exhibition opens at Baum Gallery at the University of Central Arkansas and runs through October 13.

Curator Statement - Chaney Jewell

Anaïs Dassé depicts a fallen world, a society made of tribes of children. Dassé voices, within these imaginary doomsday scenes, her concerns regarding how humanity lives beside the natural environment with little regard for the longevity of our culture or natural habitats.

Hannah McBroom explores themes of transgender identity, materiality, and the body. McBroom reflects the process of her transition, the metamorphosis of her outer self, and how the world perceives her, more accurately reflecting her inner self.

Aimée Papazian’s piece Which End Is Up? was created during the pandemic while in isolation with her family. As a result, Papazian produced an imaginary landscape, allowing her conception of the world to grow as her experiences with the outer world shrank.

Heidi Carlsen-Rogers’s By a Thread series analyzes how the world as we know it is disappearing; our environment crumbling around us. Vegetation portrayed is beautiful but frayed, as large amounts of string appear to fall from the tapestry.