Chicken Houses of Northwest Arkansas: Chicken houses are a quintessential northwest Arkansas feature that are found on hard-working farms. During the day, these chicken houses are gray, long metal buildings that stretch out across the farmland. Nightly, when lit, they are angular slashes of light in the countryside. The linear chicken house glowing against a pastoral landscape, challenges a viewer’s pre-conceived notion of what a farm looks like. I use color and contrast to emphasize that visual surrealism. The viewer may be curious to know more about chicken houses and our farmers, after seeing nature and industry stand in such a stark contrast.
Cynthia Kresse, a pastel artist from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, is known for large scale, hand rubbed pastels described as mysterious and atmospheric. Kresse’s subject matter celebrates where she lives and the people around her, as in the series “Views from The Car”, “Chicken Houses of Northwest Arkansas” and “Portraits in the Arts”. Cynthia Kresse received her Master of Arts in Medical Illustration from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas. Kresse’s art has been selected for inclusions in The Delta Exhibit, Arkansas’s “Forty Women Over Forty”, and “National Museum of Women in the Arts”.