Morrissey and Taoka Public Art Projects

Department of Studio Arts faculty Sean P. Morrissey and Loring Taoka have recently completed permanent public art projects in Bentonville, Arkansas.

From The Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE): “Through this partnership, CACHE and the team at Ledger—a newly erected co-working space in Downtown Bentonville—selected 35 Northwest Arkansas-based artists with varied mediums who will each outfit a designated area of the building including common spaces, nooks, and meeting rooms. This living art collaboration is a true reflection of Downtown Bentonville and the opportunity for Ledger to be a creative landscape for the community.”

The curatorial team who included Morrissey and Taoka consisted of Leah Grant, Lucas Cowan, and Mac Murphy.

Sean P. Morrissey has created a site-specific installation on the ground floor using cut vinyl on interior window spaces. Morrissey’s work looks at how we create and maintain our identities through architectural tropes, land use, and home. Layering this imagery allows the artist to question their own self-determination as well as the limitations one encounters in this process.

Loring Taoka has three plexiglass paintings installed on the sixth floor. The artist explores perception and what happens when we are presented with precise, yet ambiguous information. How they are read and understood, and how they read and understand themselves as a queer, Japanese-American serves as the foundation to these inquiries.

Loring Taoka, installation view, left to right: (untitled - X, pattern repeat #2), (untitled - two annular sectors, pattern repeat #1), (untitled - right angle, pattern repeat #2); 2019, acrylic on plexiglass; 18 in x 24 in. credit: Meredith Mashburn Photography 

Sean P. Morrissey, Pile #22 (Double-Pane), 2022. Adhesive vinyl, 378 in. x 116 in.
Credit: Meredith Mashburn Photography