WEST PLAINS, MO – Local artist Barbara Williams artwork will be featured on OzSBI’s first floor from early January through the end of March 2025. The West Plains Council on the Arts (WPCA) and Ozarks Small Business Incubator (OzSBI) have partnered to bring quarterly art displays to the incubator. Visitors may view the display at the incubator during OzSBI’s business hours, anytime between 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Artist Statement: “Always the Ozarks: frequently family, often rock buildings” – Rural Ozarks family images in their environment–drawings, etchings and mixed media collage have been the major thrust of my work for fifty years. Portions of these etchings have been reconfigured and are displayed alongside the original etchings. The mother and child theme appears frequently in this exhibit. These pieces are of my own family, though not taken from actual photographs, they are imagined, could-have-been snapshots.
Barbara Williams was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks and earned art degrees from Southwest Missouri State University (Missouri State University), Springfield, and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, graduating with an MFA. After graduation she spent one year traveling and working in Europe visiting countries of favorite artists. In 1997 she returned to Europe taking a class in monotype printmaking in Florence, Italy.
Her work has been included in international juried printmaking exhibitions in England, Italy, Poland, USA, Yugoslavia and numerous juried national and regional shows in the USA, including one held at the Smithsonian Institution, which was also included in a year-long traveling exhibit. Williams’ prints and mixed media collage paintings are included in permanent collections in Little Rock, AR (Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts); Boulder, CO; Swannanoa, NC (Swannanoa College) and in private collections in the USA and Italy and has been in four Watercolor USA, Springfield, MO, exhibits. Influenced by impressions from an Ozarks 1940s-50s childhood the prints and mixed media paintings are personal expressions and help preserve the history of that time and place. Williams served as an adjunct art faculty for 30 years at MSU, West Plains, MO.
A Meet-the-Artist event will be held on Thursday, January 23, 2-4 p.m. in OzSBI’s lobby at 408 Washington Ave. in West Plains. The public is invited to attend to meet Williams and view and discuss the pieces on display.
For more information about the exhibit, contact Madison Sutterfield madisonsutterfield@ozsbi.com
at OzSBI or WPCA Coordinator Audrey Scott audrey.scott@zizzers.org
