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Public Invited to See Arkansas Artist Kevin Kresse at Work

Posted on: 07/20/2022 1:34 pm

Hometown Artist Composing Johnny Cash Sculpture for U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  media@sos.arkansas.gov

(LITTLE ROCK, ARK.) – The public is invited to visit with renowned Arkansas artist and sculptor Kevin Kresse as he works on the sculpture of Johnny Cash that will eventually be placed in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.  Visiting hours are 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday, July 25th through Thursday, July 28th at the Windgate Center of Art + Design on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, located at 2801 South University Avenue in Little Rock.  Groups can be scheduled for specific times by emailing Kurt Naumann at kurt.naumann@sos.arkansas.gov. 

About Kevin Kresse

Kevin Kresse is an Arkansas native who supports his family as a painter and sculptor in Little Rock.  He has exhibited his work in New York, NY; Washington, DC; Memphis, TN; Atlanta, GA, and various galleries and institutions around Arkansas.

Kresse was named the 2015 Individual Artist for Arkansas from the Governor’s Art Awards, and was one of four people selected by the Mid-America Arts Alliance to be interviewed for a video celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2016.  He has won several awards in the Arkansas Arts Center's annual Delta Exhibition, as well as painting fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Arkansas Arts Council.

Kresse’s public sculptural work includes the bust of Win Paul Rockefeller in the Arkansas State Capitol, a monumental sculpture of WWII hero General William O. Darby in Fort Smith, the Compassion and Hope sculpture in Little Rock’s Baptist Hospital Healing Garden, and the Mother Earth sculptural fountain in the Argenta Arts District, among many others.  He has also done several murals in Central Arkansas.

Kresse has been the feature of articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Times, the North Little Rock Times, the Little Rock Free Press, Number:Inc., as well as the magazines AY, Inviting Arkansas, and Soiree.  An Associated Press story on his bust of Levon Helm was carried in the online editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other papers across the country.  Kresse has also been featured in pieces produced by the local affiliates of ABC, CBS and PBS television, as well as a video short by Garret Lakin, and another by Judge and Amy Reinhold.